Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/09/21
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Dan Cardish wrote: > > I have been told that titanium is no more coslty than steel, and not > any more difficult to machine. > If that is the case, every single report in mountainbiking magazines I've read about titanium-framed bikes is a lie. Also, if that was the case, cars would be made out of titanium, not steel. Aluminium provides great weight savings over steel, resulting in better performance and lower fuel consumption, but aluminium is about 2.5 times more expensive than steel. I don't see too many aluminium cars on the roads. Titanium weighs about 60% of steel, has three times higher specific strength of aluminium and even higher than that of steel. Therefore, I suspect (though I'm no expert) that it would be even more useful than aluminium in cars. I see even fewer titanium cars than I do aluminium. Machining the metal is more challenging than other metals, because of it's characteristics (strong, but difficult to bend). So, it costs more to work with. Check out the following: http://nicanor.acu.edu/academics/itec/titanium/paper.htm http://nicanor.acu.edu/academics/itec/titanium/titanium.htm http://www2.shef.ac.uk/chemistry/web-elements/phys-nt/Al.html http://www.shef.ac.uk/chemistry/web-elements/nofr-uses/Ti.html M. - -- Martin V. Howard, Application Systems Laboratory, | Dept. of Comp. & Info. Sci., Linkoping University, | Just "DOHH" it! SE-581 83 Linkoping, Sweden. Tel +46 13 282 421, +----------------+ Fax +46 13 142 231; marho@ida.liu.se; www.ida.liu.se/~marho