Present situation and development trend of titanium alloy and its applications in ships

As a lightweight, high strength, excellent corrosion resistance structural materials, titanium can significantly improve the technical and tactical performance of ships equipment, and enhance life-time security capabilities. Currently, titanium alloy and its manufacture technologies for ships utilization are mainly concentrated in Russia, the United States, France, Japan, China etc. Russia, the United States and France have made remarkable progress known in titanium research and applications for warships, and Japan is well known by titanium applications in civil ships. Literature shows that titanium and titanium alloys are mainly used for shell, heat exchanger, condensers, nuclear reactors shell as well as piping systems. Titanium and titanium alloy used for ships will continue to expand in the future, and some new advanced processes and technologies will be paid much more attention in order to reduce the cost of titanium parts manufacturing. In recent years, Chinese titanium industry has made a great development, and titanium manufacture processes and forming technologies as well as its equipment levels have greatly improved, and also the cost of titanium alloy has dropped to historic lowest point, that provides the massive application of titanium alloy in ship with a great opportunity. We should pay sufficient attentions to research and development of titanium alloy, which was called “Marine Metal”, and try to give a strong support to the safety, reliability and security of the ships during its whole life.