Highest customer demands are met with titanium investment castings
TITAL® produces titanium investment casting parts with a component size of up to 60 inches and part weight up to 661 pounds for all industry leaders in the European aerospace industry. TITAL® specialized in casting the titanium alloys TiAl6V4 and TiAl6Sn2Zr4Mo2 and produces cast parts using centrifugal or gravity pouring processes depending on the size.
In 2008, Airbus Germany approved TITAL® to manufacture titanium cast parts with a Casting Factor of 1.0 for the A380 aircraft. This approval has been preceded by component tests in order to determine the coefficients of variation on TiAl6V4 casting parts. This included the investigation of the influence of chemistry, weld repair, as well as the level of discontinuities with regard to the variability of static and mechanical properties.
TITAL® verifies the compliance to required mechanical properties through regularly scheduled customer specific component testing. Dynamic properties like fatigue resistance and crack propagation are being monitored in addition to static properties like yield strength, tensile strength and elongation.
The casting process is a superior alternative to machining and saves precious raw materials and the final result particularly with titanium components is more cost efficient than components machined from raw material. The cost savings achieved when using the near-net-shape investment casting for titanium components are so substantial that the conversion costs from machining to castings are quickly amortized. In addition, for big and complex assemblies many functions can be integrated into one single casting which saves additional weight and assembly costs.
In 2008 TITAL® became involved in the development of state-of-the-art titanium casting technology. Together with renowned universities and research institutes TITAL investigates production technologies for more efficient casting processes of the intermetallic alloy γ-TiAl. γ-TiAl has a density of 0.14 lbs/inches³ and is 10 % lighter than conventional titanium alloys. Besides the advantage in weight γ-TiAl is heat-resistant and perfectly suited for use in turbine blades in aircraft engines.