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The Sexiest Metal

Posted by Hemos on from the strong-and-sexy dept.

jonerik writes "Denver's weekly Westword magazine has this article on titanium and the attempts to break it out of its traditional aerospace/defense industry niche, including its growing use in architecture, computers, jewelry, sports, knives, cars, medicine, and other areas. The upside: It's as strong as steel but weighs half as much, it doesn't rust, and it's fairly plentiful. The downside: It's expensive compared to steel and aluminum and its high melting point makes it difficult to work with under some conditions. Still, it's nice to see it being used in other applications." Heck, I know someone who used it as his wedding ring. Pretty cool, actually.

24 of 475 comments (clear)

  1. Titanium is also very flexible. by Flarners · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Titanium may be as strong as steel, but it's far easier to bend when cut thin. Anybody who has one of the titanium PowerBooks will attest to the fact that if you try to pick them up from one end, the thing will bend disturbingly. This is why you won't see titanium in kitchen sinks, silverware or anywhere else where the metal needs to be thin, strong, and unflexible. The only thing it has going over steel in these cases is buzzword compliance and price (if it's more expensive, it must be better!)

    --
    "The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for 'entrepeneur'." -George W. Bush
    1. Re:Titanium is also very flexible. by Flarners · · Score: 4, Informative

      The newer TiBooks are reinforced in order to prevent this bending problem. The first few runs of them (including my own) flop around to a dangerous degree unless you make sure to pick them up with both hands. If a CD or DVD's in its drive, you can hear it getting scuffed up by the drive hardware when it bends! Apple's "designer" computers have a history of problems in the first run (heat fissures in the plastic moulding of the G4 cubes come to mind). Be glad you weren't an early adopter :)

      --
      "The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for 'entrepeneur'." -George W. Bush
    2. Re:Titanium is also very flexible. by dhovis · · Score: 5, Informative
      Oh Boy.

      Puts materials scientist hat on

      The TiBook is made from commertially-pure (CP) Titanium. This is basically an unalloyed grade and is very weak relative to the better 6-4 (6%Al-4%V) "aircraft grade" Titanium alloys.

      This is the thing. Apple chose Titanium more because it was sexy than anything else. You see a lot of things advertised as "Titanium", and often times the Titanium plays no important role in the product. There are some golf balls out there that has some Titanium in one of the resins close to the core, but the Ti is not in metal form, and is really only there in minute quantities.

      In fact, sometimes titanium overshadows everything else there. One of the responses mentions "Titanium" glasses frames that are very flexible. Those are not pure titanium. They are a 50-50 alloy of Titanium and Nickel. It is a "shape-memory alloy" which has the ability to deform easily by realigning the crystal structure when bent! and then shifting the crystal structure back when the stress is removed. They are way cooler than just titanium. They have been precision engineered to be superelastic.

      Titanium may be sexy, but it is not always the whole story. The marketing people often latch on to it, but as it becomes more common (and it will), it will start to lose it's allure. A large part of the cost of titanium is in refining it from the ore, and I've heard about a few developments that might bring it closer to the cost of aluminum in that respect.

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    3. Re:Titanium is also very flexible. by 56ker · · Score: 3, Funny

      Prehaps the tit in titanium makes it the reason why the marketing people latch on to it - just my tuppence.

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    4. Re:Titanium is also very flexible. by b_pretender · · Score: 5, Informative
      This is the thing. Apple chose Titanium more because it was sexy than anything else. You see a lot of things advertised as "Titanium", and often times the Titanium plays no important role in the product. There are some golf balls out there that has some Titanium in one of the resins close to the core, but the Ti is not in metal form, and is really only there in minute quantities.
      Titanium Dioxide, commonly referred to as rutile, is a form of titanium. This is commonly found in most white pigments and dies. Chances are, the white golf ball has rutile, and thus titanium, in the dyed plastic coating. Gold balls are usually white, and I wouldn't be surprised if most of them contained rutile.

      Kitchen sinks, stoves, refrigerator, bath tubs, many have a porcelain coating and rutile is the whiteness in the coating. Even your green stove has a white rutile base prior to adding green pigment.

      That being said, I agree that structurally, it would have been better to use steel or alluminum for the case of the PowerBook. However I own a powerBook, and, although flexible, I prefer it's titanium, although polished aluminum would be cool too.

      The coolest thing about titanium, that often get's looked over is its resiliancy. It makes it ideal for applications where steel and aluminum are useless. Look at bicycle frames, for example. Steel frames have been around for years and they have been optimized to be ultralight, strong, yet flexible enough for a comfortable ride. Aluminum came along, and although lighter than steel, it made for a rigid stiff frame and a toothshattering bike ride. The *design* of the aluminum frames could have been altered to allow for more resiliency, but the problem with aluminum is it fatigues and breaks if it flexes to much, so redesigning the frame to be more flexible was out of the question. Fortuneatly, suspension bicycles need a high stiffness in order to keep hinges/shocks/etc. lined up straight, so aluminum is ideal for this purpose.

      Titanium, although not as strong as steel and not as light as aluminum, offers resilience. The first Ti mountain bike frames were awful, built similar to their steel counterparts, and compared to riding a wet-noodle rather than a bicycle. Over the years, the design of Ti bikes has caught so that the frames are resilient in all of the right places, while still remaining sturdy in the other places. Some frames have even used this resilience as the suspension and put a damper/shock into the frame to allow for suspension travel and damping in a metal frame with NO hinges.

    5. Re:Titanium is also very flexible. by Zeio · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Uncoated and unalloyed metals are of limited use in general. A pure gold ring will fold quite easily if pressed between your fingers. It must be alloyed with Copper to make it reasonable.

      I find that people who don't use alloyed titanium and instead use pure or cheap alloys annoying, because sex appeal is not very important in a functional unit.

      As far as interesting metals go, Platinum and Iridium are far more interesting and "sexy". Iridium makes radiant salt and complexes, and both of these metals are very "noble," resisting tarnish. I would think a titanium ring for a wedding band as a trite piece of junk personally.

      I have personally seen a forged iridium platinum ring. It was striking. Far better than gold, I think.

      There is also an alloy of steel and gold, gold steel, which is a very curious blue color.

      Alloys are an awesome field, I recently read an article about Damascus steel, and that it has *finally* been recreated.

      I think that the statement that Titanium is the sexiest metal is the furthest thing from the truth - its interesting, its useful, but not sexy. Unless the Russians have recently began to set the sex appeal standard in the world ;p.

      Note that the Alfa class subs the Russians use are able to go several times deeper than a Seawolf class. The Alfas are made from titanium and can go over 4,000 feet deep.

      I have provided a link FAS, which shows the real world implications of Titanium and Steel strength. This is also manifested in that fact that because the Russians have a plethora of Titanium, they are able to make cobra-maneuver capable jets like the MiG-29 and Su-27, Su-37, Su-everything, . Titanium is not for sex appeal, its for strength when alloyed with the right things. Even though the Russian planes are more acrobatically capable, Avionics, JSTARS, and AWACS makes the dog fighting concept almost entirely obsolete in modern warfare.



      A submarine's hull is normally constructed of steel, or exceptionally of titanium. Special High Yield [HY] steel alloys have been developed to increase the diving depth of submarines, although the improved depth performance of these alloys imposes a price of increased fabrication challenges. These special steels are denominated by their yield stress in thousands of pounds per square inch -- thus HY-80 steel has a yield stress of 80,000 pounds per square inch [corresponding to a depth of 1,800 feet], HY-100 a a yield stress of 100,000 pounds per square inch [corresponding to a depth of 2,250 feet], and so on.

      During World War II, American fleet submarines normally operated at a depth of 200 feet, though in emergencies they would dive to a depth of 400 feet.
      Post-War American submarines, both conventional and nuclear, had improved designs and were constructed of improved materials [the equivalent of "HY-42"]. These boats had normal operating depths of some 700 feet, and a crush depth of 1100 feet.
      The Thresher, the first American submarine constructed of HY-80 steel, reportedly had a normal operating depth of 1,300 feet, roughly two-thirds the crush depth limit imposed by the HY-80 steel.
      The Seawolf, the first American submarine constructed of HY-100 steel, is officially claimed by the Navy to have a normal operating depth of "greater than 800 feet," but based on the reported operating depth of the Thresher, it may be assumed that the normally operating depth of the Seawolf is roughly double the official figure.
      The Soviet Alfa submarines, constructed of titanium, reportedly had an operating depth of nearly 4,000 feet
      .



      Baxter.
      --
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  2. Ti wedding rings by farnham · · Score: 3, Interesting

    www.tirings.com carries some great rings. They seem to be the only ones making highly polished ti rings. I'm hoping my fiancee gices me the go-ahead to get one. She unfortunatley has a hang-up about our rings not matching.
    I think the blue titanium oxide looks great. I have questions about the oxides durability in the long run. Fortunatley I don't have to think about the rings durability.
    Does anyone out there have one of these?

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    pending committee review
  3. Ti Wedding Ring? by 4of12 · · Score: 5, Funny

    If you haven't been married for long you probably don't know that sometimes, when people gain weight, the rings start to become, uh, constrictive.

    With a traditional soft gold alloy you can snip the tight ring with a pair of bolt cutters or even wire cutters for thinner gauge rings.

    With titanium, I don't think you'd have such an easy time removing a stuck ring. A cutting torch is not going to leave much of a finger and using a diamond saw, too, could be real tricky with in vivo parts involved.

    Get ready for gangreme to set in, unless you lose a bunch of weight in a hurry or find a good lubricant.

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    1. Re:Ti Wedding Ring? by Tekmage · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Just a followup to this. If/when you get a Ti ring, get in the habit of taking it off at night so it doesn't get stuck.

      My wife got my a Ti-Au combo ring for X-mas; I wear it on my right middle-finger. :-)

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      --The more you know, the less you know.
    2. Re:Ti Wedding Ring? by ek_adam · · Score: 4, Insightful
      With titanium, I don't think you'd have such an easy time removing a stuck ring. A cutting torch is not going to leave much of a finger and using a diamond saw, too, could be real tricky with in vivo parts involved.
      Forget power tools, just be patient with a small hand file.
    3. Re:Ti Wedding Ring? by CodeShark · · Score: 3, Informative
      Tell me about it. I have a titanium & gold wedding ring, which I nowwear on a pendant around my neck now.

      It took an injury to my left hand with a circular saw -- and a nurse who pulled the ring off while I was unconscious -- so that they could put about 10 stitches in that finger (not counting the 70 or so inside and out on my index and middle fingers) to convince me that Ti Wedding rings are *NOT* a good idea.

      --
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    4. Re:Ti Wedding Ring? by banuaba · · Score: 5, Interesting

      When I did volunteer EMS in rural NJ, we had this thing in our rig called a 'ring remover'. It removed rings with a little saw blade, and it was nigh impossible to damage the patient's finger with the cutter. Ti was on the list of metals that it would cut. So I wouldn't be *that* worried.

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  4. soviet relics by kharchenko · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Back in USSR, for a given quantity of alchohol, you could get pretty neat titanium ware. We had titanium hiking gear such as ovens, climbing hooks, portable shovels, etc. They were considerably better in most ways. Later, in the mid-90s, some "businessmen" were selling bike frames made out of pure titanum. A friend of mine still rides one of those - doesn't rust and very light.

  5. Titanium wedding rings by totallygeek · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Be careful about using titanium for your wedding rings (or any ring for that matter). The ring cannot be resized, and is fairly-much useless if your finger grows or shrinks.

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  6. I've got Ti wedding rings by Chairboy · · Score: 3, Informative

    My wife and I got married back on March 24, and we are both wearing excellent titanium rings from www.boonerings.com.

    My ring is styled after Ed Harris's ring from The Abyss, and my wife has a pair of helix rings, one that holds a diamond through tension in a spectacular manner not possible with softer metals.

    See: http://www.boonerings.com/large/helixxlite.htm

    In regards to safety, Titanium rings can be easilly removed using cutting tools present in most ERs.

  7. Alloys by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    For most applications it is Titanium 6-4, very hard and very tough:
    - 6% aluminum
    - 4% vanadium
    - 90% titanium

    For bicycle frames, Titanium 3-2.5 is used as it is more ductile (for forming seamless tubes) and has a better stiffness in torsion (which is needed as pushing on one peddle then the other torques the frame back and forth):
    - 3% aluminum
    - 2.5% vanadium
    - 94.5% pure titanium

  8. Yeah, but beware of scams by WhaDaYaKnow · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yeah, we got titanium rings for our wedding.

    It had 'platinum' inlays. After a couple of days my wife got a rash. Now, she wears a titanium watch all the time, so she's not alergic to that. She also has been wearing the platinum engagement ring for several months, so she's not alergic to that either. She is however alergic to tons of other metals, like white gold (or the nickel they use in it).

    When she contacted the company, all they said was, ok, return them, insisting that it was real titanium & platinum. To be fair,- they did refund us promptly, but the ease at which they did it makes me suspicious.

    What I'm trying to say is, how do you know for sure that things are actually made of the material you are paying for? I guess especially when you buy stuff online it's pretty risky.

    And it kind of sucks to have to return your wedding rings :(.

  9. Some sexy Ti sites to slashdot by circletimessquare · · Score: 3, Informative

    Check out the movies. Now THAT'S sexy!

    Some more Titanium info, but this site is just way sexy. Check out the Flash Periodic Table on it.

    Remember this post? "The Periodic Table of Comic Book Elements" from 2 days ago. The main site seems to have been fatally slashdotted, but here's Titanium on a mirror. Not so sexy, but timely. ;-)

    --
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  10. Welding? by markmoss · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Anyone here welded titanium? I wasn't a welder in the Air Force, and it was a long, long time ago, but IIRC the metal shop had to drag out all sorts of gear if welding Ti was necessary. I think you have to flood the weld area with nitrogen because its ignition temperature in air is lower than the melting temperature. Of course, you need something much hotter than the normal welding torch. Then you get the weld done and need to grind down the excess bead -- and as hard as Ti is, that's going to take some time.

    But it's mighty durable once it's together.

  11. Jewelers have a tool for this by swb · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My dad had to have his ring resized back in the late 70s and I went with him to the jewelers. His ring finger had swollen substantially over time and his ring had become quite uncomfortable.

    To remove it the jeweler had a tool with a flat bit that slid between the ring and the finger and had a cutting wheel (like a dremel cutting disk) that cut through the ring. The bit that slid under the ring was aligned with the cutting wheel so that when you went through the ring you didn't start cutting flesh.

    The ring was then resized and re-fused to be a continuous ring. I'd guess that cutting is a last resort and that cut rings might have been resized by actually adding material to make them bigger rather than just stretching them.

    IIRC the cutting part was hand actuated, but with the safety "backstop" I see no reason other than heat that it couldn't be mechanically operated.

  12. Re:I am partially made of Titanium by RadioheadKid · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's probably due to the fact that you have a titanium plate in you wrist.

    --
    "Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
  13. Re:I am partially made of Titanium by kaimiike1970 · · Score: 3, Funny

    It might be from the 'exercise' your wrist is getting while you take those looooong baths and showers.

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  14. Re:"soft"? by morcheeba · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've had two titanium watches....

    The first was a Wittnauer (I don't think they make it anymore). It was unfinished titanium, and got a lot of scratches during the year and a half that I wore it (it has a 10-year pacemaker battery!)

    The second one is a ventura v-matic watch, and it's had the honor of being on my wrist for 3 years. Usually I get bored of watches, or they get scratched, so that's quite a feat! This watch has a special nitrogen coating that seems unique to ventura (I'd love to see it on non-watch products). The surface has been hardened to the hardness of saphire. Saphire is just below diamond on the hardness scale, and, yes, it scratchs glass. The watch is absolutely scratchless. It has a small ding (.5mm dia) that occured in a hangglider emergency landing (although "survived a plane crash" sounds much sexier!). But, the ding is exactly that - not a scratch. Since only the surface is hardend, the material is still soft underneath and can be dented.

    Although the watch is big (pure mechanical, automatic winder), it's still light. As an engineer, I love the see-through back!! Check out the 3d viewer of it.

    It's a bit spendy, but most of the price is the mechanicals inside. Ok, a good chunk (1/5-2/3) is to the retailer, but most of the manufacturing cost is probably labor.

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  15. TiO2 and self-cleaning glass by wowbagger · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One other neat application of Ti is TiO2 coating glass and other surfaces. The TiO2, when exposed to UV light (like sunlight) causes a catalytic reaction oxidizing anything on the surface.

    Car windows treated with TiO2 on the outside would literally burn off the gunk that gets on them (insects, bird splats, hydrocarbon grunge) in the sunlight, staying clean.

    There has even been talk of using this in medical surfaces (exam tables and O.R.s) - when you are done, flood the area with some UV and burn the microbes off the surface.
    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=TiO 2+UV+surfa ce+treatment">here's a link to some pages on Google.

    a href="

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