Powder Metallurgy

Parts of powder metallurgy in the field of weapons and aerospace

Qinhuangdao Zhongwei Precision Machinery Co., Ltd. summarized the powder metallurgy parts used in aviation. The bolts used in aerospace and aerospace were originally made of high-strength plastics.

However, plastic bolts cannot be used in high temperature environments. Yes, in the initial design, the material used for the bolts is plastic. Therefore, the bolts should not only be light in weight, but also cannot be reduced in high temperature strength. For this purpose, a hexagonal head is designed and manufactured,

The rest are powder metallurgy titanium hollow screws with circular through holes. Such hollow bolts are made by cold isostatic pressing and sintering, and then finished turning the outer diameter and machining threads.

Among them, the dome called Sidewinder Missile was previously made of a titanium alloy billet with a mass of 2.2kg, which was machined into a finished dome with a precision tolerance and a wall thickness of 0.635mm. The mass of the preform made by the powder metallurgy cold isostatic pressing-sintering process is only 0.56kg, so only the preform can save 60% of the cost compared with the previously used forged titanium alloy blank. At the same time, it also saves a lot of cutting costs and energy, which is obvious.

Maverick missile lens mount made of titanium powder metallurgy. This part used to be made of blanks and machining, and the ratio of the quality of the input material to the quality of the finished part was 15:1; after switching to titanium powder metallurgy material, the ratio of the quality of the input material to the quality of the finished part was reduced to 3: 1. It saves about 80% of materials, and of course it also greatly reduces cutting costs and energy consumption.

Some powder metallurgy titanium alloy parts are produced by powder forging process. When manufacturing parts with conventional forging processes, not only the weight of the forgings is large, but also several pairs of forging dies are required. When powder forging is used, the cold isostatic pressing (or conventional pressing and forming) process is used first to mix the element powder (or pre-alloyed titanium alloy powder) and sinter into a preform (density about 95%), and then a Forging can be made into full density forgings.

Titanium keel joints for aircraft are made of titanium alloy powder by hot isostatic pressing. When manufactured by powder metallurgy isostatic pressing, compared with ordinary forgings, each part can save 1.65KG of titanium alloy, about 78.6% of material, and also save a lot of cutting costs and time resources.

The industrial blunt titanium hexagon nut produced by powder metallurgy can save a lot of cost in the process of manufacturing fasteners. This powder metallurgy titanium nut accounts for the majority of the titanium hexagon nut market and is currently used in the military industry.

According to literature reports. Titanium has very good corrosion resistance to seawater, and is an ideal material for ship weapons. Tests were performed on green samples of titanium powder at Wrightsvil Beach in seawater and at Kure Beach, North Carolina, in a marine atmosphere. After 15 years of exposure to seawater, titanium powder metallurgy test panels showed very good corrosion resistance. Figure 6-9 shows a sonar reflector for the US Navy made of powder metallurgy titanium alloy. This product was previously manufactured from wrought and rolled titanium alloys by machining, and as early as the 1970s, it was switched to powder metallurgy titanium alloys.

Another project completed by the US Navy is to study a method for extruding powder metallurgy titanium billets into 20mm cartridge cases.

This is due to the rapid corrosion of the ammunition stored in the rails to be fired on the deck exposed to the elements. The researched initial production Ding Yi has a total of 7 processes, producing powder metallurgy titanium bullet casings, and successfully completed the test shooting. Later, powder metallurgy titanium cartridges were not used due to the use of plastic and brass-coated cartridges.

For example, the nose cone of the missile was previously made of forged titanium alloy rings, which were made by cutting, and were produced by cold isostatic pressing sintering as early as the 1970s. Hundreds of powder metallurgy titanium alloy missile nose cones in early production passed the acceptance test.

Another special use of titanium powder is as a material for the production of incendiary bombs, and both zirconium and cerium alloys have historically been used for these purposes. However, the use of titanium as a material for incendiary bombs has some advantages, such as high energy production per kilogram or cubic meter, and low cost.