Why Aircraft Carrier Titanium Rivets Are So Expensive

A rivet costs at least 100,000 RMB and not every country has the capacity to process them. The price is even higher if you rely on imports. Titanium Nuts and Bolts Made from titanium alloy, titanium is considered a rare metal due to its dispersion in nature and difficulty in extraction. It is characterized by light weight, high strength, metallic luster, and good corrosion resistance (including seawater, aqua regia, and chlorine). Due to its stable chemical properties, good resistance to high temperature, low temperature, strong acid, strong alkali, as well as high strength, low density, etc., it is known as the "space metal".

In fact, not all rivets on aircraft carriers are worth money. In China, the value of 10,000 yuan. But foreign titanium rivets are very valuable, Audi's much cheaper. These astronomical rivets are used on aircraft carriers with vertical takeoff and landing capabilities, as they are subjected to 1,000-degree flames when taking off from vertical fighters.

Titanium rivets are really expensive in terms of processing technology. The international market price of titanium is $28 per kilogram, or about 90 yuan per kilogram. The recycling price of titanium scrap is about 50 yuan/kg.

The reason why titanium products are sold expensively is not the value of the material itself. The most expensive titanium alloy in the metal materials market will not exceed 600 yuan/kg. Titanium alloy products are expensive because of the high cost of processing. Titanium alloy material is one of the most difficult materials to process in the machining industry. Its processing cost is several times to dozens of times of its material. To give you a brief introduction to the characteristics of titanium alloy, you can see the difficulty of processing. "Low thermal conductivity" means slow heat transfer. If heat transfer is slow, heat will accumulate locally during machining, and it is easy to burn the tool. Therefore, in order not to generate a lot of heat, the cutting speed of the tool is slow when machining titanium alloys, resulting in longer machining times. Some large factories use liquid nitrogen for process cooling to improve the machining efficiency of titanium alloys. In addition, the titanium alloy swarf cut during machining, in the case of poor cooling, at a temperature of about 200 degrees will burn. Isn't it expensive to machine workpieces that cause fires after machining?