Research On The Cold Working Properties Of Titanium
Aug 13, 2025
Titanium tubes are made of industrially pure titanium, grade TA2. According to the GB/T3624-2010 standard, the allowable outer diameter deviation of the tube is ±0.65mm, and the allowable wall thickness deviation does not exceed ±12.5% of the nominal wall thickness. The inner and outer surfaces of the tube should be clean, free of visible defects such as cracks, folds, peeling, and pinholes. Cold-bending titanium tubes using CNC tube bending machines offers high product quality and high processing efficiency. Multiple bends can be completed in a single operation, reducing the workload of subsequent assembly and welding, making it suitable for large-scale production. The key to production is selecting appropriate process parameters (including bending speed, sequence, and springback settings) based on the mechanical properties of the material and the processing capabilities of the equipment to ensure the production of qualified products.
Titanium rods are widely used in chemical equipment due to their light weight, high strength, and excellent corrosion resistance to media such as alkalis, chlorides, organic chlorine compounds, nitric acid, and sulfuric acid. Titanium electrodes are used to electrolytically deposit and refine metals such as copper, gold, nickel, manganese, and manganese dioxide from sulfide-containing sulfuric acid solutions. Titanium's excellent corrosion resistance and the ability of its oxide film to act as a good separator are the main reasons for its application in the electrolytic industry. In the electrolytic production of manganese dioxide, due to the highly corrosive electrolyte, titanium's corrosion resistance can be exploited to create heaters. This article describes the structure of titanium heaters, the shortcomings of hot-bending titanium tubes, and the working principle and process of using CNC tube bending machines to produce titanium tubes.
Due to titanium's poor cold working properties, there is no research in domestic or international literature on the use of CNC tube bending machines for titanium tubes. In a recent batch of titanium heaters, to improve product quality and to experiment with CNC tube bending, we collaborated with a professional tube bending manufacturer to cold-form titanium tubes using CNC tube bending machines. The titanium heaters are primarily made from 60mm x 3mm titanium seamless tubes, with a design pressure of 0.4 MPa and a design temperature of 200°C. The heater is placed in an electrolytic cell filled with electrolyte. During operation, high-temperature steam is introduced into the titanium tube to heat the electrolyte. The process for processing titanium tube bends using the hot-bending method is as follows: fill the titanium tube with fine sand and tamp it down, then place the titanium tube on a simple tube bending die, use an oxygen gun to heat the part to be bent, and bend the titanium tube; cut the bent titanium tube into 90 pieces each, and then weld it to the straight tube assembly. The main disadvantages of titanium bends processed using the hot-bending method are: large tube ovality (not less than 4mm), thickness reduction (the maximum thinning occurs at the outer arc, with a thinning amount exceeding 1mm); the inner wall is easily wrinkled under pressure; the consistency of size and shape is poor, resulting in manual correction during subsequent assembly; low processing efficiency, and the bending of titanium tubes relies entirely on the operator's experience and technical proficiency; at the same time, since the titanium tube is heated during processing, if the temperature is not well controlled, it is easy to cause material oxidation, thereby reducing the corrosion resistance of the equipment.
The company boasts leading domestic titanium processing production lines, including:
German-imported precision titanium tube production line (annual production capacity: 30,000 tons);
Japanese-technology titanium foil rolling line (thinnest to 6μm);
Fully automated titanium rod continuous extrusion line;
Intelligent titanium plate and strip finishing mill;
The MES system enables digital control and management of the entire production process, achieving product dimensional accuracy of ±0.01μm.
