Studies of New-Type Titanium Alloys for Aviation Applications in China

The latest R&D of new-type titanium alloys and their aviation applications as well as the newly developed processing technologies in China have been reviewed in this paper. To meet the requirements of high performance and low cost design of aviation-oriented titanium alloys, great efforts and achievements have been made in establishing a system with Chinese characteristics, in which the low-strength-and-high-toughness titanium alloy (such as Ti45Nb alloy used for fasteners and TA18 for tubes & pipes), the medium-strength and high-damage-tolerance titanium alloy (such as TC4-DT used for large-integral airframe structures), the high-strength and high-toughness damage tolerance titanium alloy (such as TC21 used for large-integral airframe structures), and the ultra-high strength titanium alloy (such as TB8) are included. Some new processing technologies such as quasi-β forging and quasi-β heat treatment, integral isothermal forging and electron beam welding, have been demonstrated to be able to markedly enhance the properties of titanium alloys, which is regarded to be very important in increasing the application amount and level of titanium in aviation industry.