Cost-Breakthrough Titanium Production as a Commodity Metal

Vartech proposes a technically aggressive program for direct manufacture of titanium and titanium alloys at very low cost and high energy efficiency. The Phase II program will: (a) optimize the process, (b) prepare both "inexpensive" bulk titanium alloys,and high performance alloys, and (c ) apply the titanium alloys produced to BMDO/DOD and commercial systems. A vertical furnace reactor will be designed and fabricated to produce adequate quantities of titanium for product testing and manufacture, and toobtain thermodynamic process data for further scale-up and cost estimations. The process will be extended to important Ti and related refractory metal alloys powders. Ti alloy powders will be tested for powder metallurgy fabrication, plasma spraycoatings, and additive laser sintering direct part manufacture.