RFQ Titanium Fabrication

snowman · Jun 16, 2019

I have no clue where to go on this, or even what it should cost.

I would like a titanium container, approximately 1/8" thick, 12" diameter, 24" tall. Think, 5 gallon bucket made of titanium.

What kind of prices should I expect? Titanium grade can be anything that may be lying around. Dimensions are entirely flexible. If it's easier to go to a polygonal shape instead of round so it can be press braked, that's fine too. I basically just need a corrosion resistant container that is liquid tight and closed on one end.

At a later time I will need more titanium fabrication done, but I need to dip my toes in to the market to determine what I should expect in terms of prices.

Guest · Jun 16, 2019

You probably should specify what you are looking for appearance wise. Not my area of expertise, but I would think forming a major portion of your container will be more costly than fabricating it mostly from wielding.

moonlight machine · Jun 16, 2019

kustomizingkid said:
I'm in the camp of why Ti too...

Did you read the post? It clearly says "corrosion resistant". Maybe he needs something to keep his sulfuric acid in.

jz79 · Jun 16, 2019

can't help with pricing, but I will give some idea about about the complexity of the work:

not all Ti grades are equally corrosion resistant, Grade 1 and 2 is what I used for heat exchanger in sulfuric acid Al anodizing bath (4th year with zero signs of pitting, 12% acid at room temperature), Gr5 will corrode, and welding is not exactly straight forward, meaning - shielding from both sides is a must, short welds, let it cool, either extra large cup or trailing shield has to used to avoid contamination (which will lead to brittleness and cracking), that means lots of argon and $$$ for properly done welds

I've worked with sheets of Gr1 and 2 with thickness up to 1,5mm, forming it (shearing, rolling or bending) is easier than working with stainless (Gr1 and 2 are less springy than SS) and a bit harder than mild steel, but as I stated - getting good quality welds won't be cheap, and I suspect the application will require for the product to be durable

are you totally sure that you really do need Ti for this application?

Milland · Jun 16, 2019

Consider deep drawing for your "bucket" if you wind up with a production requirement.

moonlight machine · Jun 16, 2019

kustomizingkid said:
Would you rather build something from Ti or 316ss? This is also a forum ya know, for discussion. Its a pretty simple question.

Well if he does need something to put his sulfuric acid in Ti will last a lot longer then ss.

snowman · Jun 16, 2019

jz79 said:
can't help with pricing, but I will give some idea about about the complexity of the work:

not all Ti grades are equally corrosion resistant, Grade 1 and 2 is what I used for heat exchanger in sulfuric acid Al anodizing bath (4th year with zero signs of pitting, 12% acid at room temperature), Gr5 will corrode, and welding is not exactly straight forward, meaning - shielding from both sides is a must, short welds, let it cool, either extra large cup or trailing shield has to used to avoid contamination (which will lead to brittleness and cracking), that means lots of argon and $$$ for properly done welds

I've worked with sheets of Gr1 and 2 with thickness up to 1,5mm, forming it (shearing, rolling or bending) is easier than working with stainless (Gr1 and 2 are less springy than SS) and a bit harder than mild steel, but as I stated - getting good quality welds won't be cheap, and I suspect the application will require for the product to be durable

are you totally sure that you really do need Ti for this application?

In this case, titanium is for chloride/chlorine resistance at a working temperature of under 100 deg C. Specific chemical is HCl at up to "full" concentration (37.2%), but with various oxidizers present.

I've been told that grade isn't important for chloride/chlorine resistance, but I'll double check on that.

This will never end up being a production item.

Proper weld technique is an absolute must, and I'd hope that anyone considering work like this where I said corrosion resistance would be knowledgeable...but that is totally on me for not specifying technique.

I'm at this point where I should probably just do it myself, but my only working TIG welder is a trailblazer with an external HF box/pedal, and it's sort of a pain to set up. But I recognize that getting any fab shop to perform a by the book weld is damn near impossible, even though so many will claim they do.

snowman · Jun 16, 2019

Eh shit...after reading a bit it's clear it's going to be grade specific.

So nevermind guys...guess I need to buy my chemical engineer friend a couple beers so I can figure out how to proceed.

jz79 · Jun 16, 2019

HCl I'm not familiar with, but as far as I remember, the Cl would rule out any stainless steels

Regarding welding Ti, the first heat exchanger I built that worked well, and I still have it, I made from 0,8mm Ti sheets, I formed the sheets like in the picture, pressed both ends of the sheets together so there would be basically no air from the other side, and then used slow pulse setting on the Tig welder to fuse weld the seam, it held and worked well before I built a larger one from gr2 tubing, but my application isn't nearly as nasty as HCl at 100C...

I used this same method to make stainless tanks for other needs, and some of them regularly cycle between room temperature and +85C, haven't had a failure yet (knocks on wood

)

I'm not sure about the 100C, but maybe something like HDPE welded tank with a steel backing (or composite, like appropriate vinyl resin and glass fiber reinforcement) would work for this? HDPE will start to get soft at that temp, but if it resists the acid at that temperature, then it just needs structural backing to hold together, might be easier to build than the Ti tank

pic of the construction method I used:

snowman · Jun 16, 2019

PP and HDPE hold up just fine to the HCl, but once you start adding oxidizers it either starts crazing or softening. Right now I'm just using standard 5 gallon buckets at 60degC, and they work a few times.

plastikdreams · Jun 16, 2019

Why no go with something steel and fluidized bed coated Teflon.

snowman · Jun 16, 2019

plastikdreams said:
Why no go with something steel and fluidized bed coated Teflon.

Steel doesn’t hold up well in hcl environment, even when coated. Plus this routinely has stuff loaded in to it that could scratch it. I use a glass 5 liter beaker, but it gets scratched too. Really want to be able to clean it out with a scotchbrite pad.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ox · Jun 17, 2019

This is also a forum ya know, for discussion.

No, actually it is not.

-------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox

alan speyrer · Jun 17, 2019

That’s correct!, with OX moderating posts based on his opinion! Keep up the good work, well, or lack of actual machine work, you sure will get your post count up, certainly adding value to threads.

Ox said:
No, actually it is not.

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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

cgmaster · Jun 18, 2019

When you say liquid tight do you need a tip on it to be liquid tight?

jonok · Jun 23, 2019

Why can’t you use an XLPE container?

Rewt · Jun 24, 2019

Milland said:
Consider deep drawing for your "bucket" if you wind up with a production requirement.

That's actually not doable. I wouldn't even want to start on a project deep drawing titanium at any depth. No Quote.

Milland · Jun 24, 2019

Rewt said:
That's actually not doable. I wouldn't even want to start on a project deep drawing titanium at any depth. No Quote.

Well, yeah - not doable for you or me. But it's certainly doable for companies who know what they're doing:

Deep Draw Stamping Titanium

And maybe not that hard after all:

YouTube

RFQ Titanium Fabrication

Diamond

Guest

Guest

Diamond

Stainless

Diamond

Diamond

Diamond

Diamond

Stainless

Diamond

Diamond

Diamond

Diamond

Stainless

Cast Iron

Cast Iron

Hot Rolled

Diamond

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