Aluminum

Carbon Fiber

Carbon Steel

Titanium

Glossary of Terminology

CRANKSETS
 - Design Evolution
 - ISIS Standard
 - Crank Length
 - Ceramic Bearings

HANDLEBARS
 - Features
 - Aluminum
 - Carbon
 - Titanium

BICYCLE SEATS

SEAT POSTS

BICYCLE TIRES
- MTN Bicycle Tires
- Bicycle Tire Liners

BICYCLE TUBES
- Schreader Valves
- Presta Tube Stems
- Butyl or Latex

BICYCLE WHEELS

MATERIAL SCIENCE

Bicycle Helmets

Titanium

Titanium is a relatively new engineering material on the market, but gains market share yearly as fabricators find new ways to capitalize on its combination of high strength-to-weight ratio, excellent mechanical properties, high melting temperature and corrosion resistance.

Alloying: Very small amounts of Palladuim are used for alloying to improve corrosion resistance and strength in chemical processing and storage applications. Similarly Tin, chromium and aluminum as well as a long list of others, are used as alloying elements for specific sets of mechanical and/or chemical attributes.

Applications: It has become the metal of choice in high stress applications like industrial turbines and military equipment. It finds further applications in critical areas of nuclear energy production and medical equipment, even including prothesis and medical implants where low weight to strength offers patients greater mobility.

Fabrication: Welding can have a significant affect on the final material properties, increasing strength and hardness but reducing tensile and ductility properties, making the metal susceptible to fracture under stress at welded joints. Alloying and post weld heat treatments (annealing applications) can improve fracture strength in these situations.

This maybe a particularly important feature when looking at titanium bike frames and titanium handbars and the resulting damage when (not if) we crash. As with aluminum it would be important to inspect your frame carefully after the fact. In the industry they have specialized Xrays for just such a job, but you and I have to use the manual method.

Titanium's high cost is the only major hurdle in preventing wide spread adoption into less critical applications. This is true of not only the cost of raw material, but also in fabrication and refining expenses. Titanium's chemical reactivity with other materials at high temperatures, implies rather innovative and more costly melting and casting techniques. It has relatively poor room temperature shaping and forming abilities compared to aluminum and steel, thus the latter remains the first choice option where the economics do not justify highly sophisticated alloys.

Weight: relatively low density of 4.5g/cm3. Although this is almost twice the weight of aluminum, it is almost half that of steel with much greater tensile strength then either, while still remaining highly ductile. It also has a very high melting temperature that becomes significant in numberous industrial applications.

Strength: The strengths vary from 220MPa for basic titanium up to 480 MPa for some grades of commercial titanium to about 1100 MPa for structural titanium alloys and over 1725 MPa for special forms such as wires and springs. You can use the MatWeb link below to find the properties for a specific alloy-treatment combination.

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Other interesting information:

MatWeb Material Property Data look under Nonferrous Metals