7 Reasons Why Titanium Is Difficult To Process

1. Titanium can maintain high strength at high temperatures, and its plastic deformation resistance remains unchanged even at high cutting speeds. This makes the cutting forces much higher than any steel.

2. The final chip formation is very thin, and the contact area between the chip and the tool is three times smaller than that of steel. Therefore, the tip of the tool must withstand almost all cutting forces.

3. Titanium alloy has high friction on cutting tool materials. This increases the cutting temperature and strength.
At temperatures in excess of 500 degrees Celsius, titanium reacts chemically with most tool materials.

4. If the heat is accumulated too high, titanium will spontaneously ignite when cutting, so a coolant must be used when cutting titanium alloys.

5. Due to the small contact area and thin chips, all the heat in the cutting process flows to the tool, which greatly reduces the service life of the tool. Only high-pressure coolant can keep up with the build-up of heat.

6. The elastic modulus of titanium alloy is very low. This causes vibrations, tool chatter and deflection.

7. At low cutting speed, the material will stick to the cutting edge, which is very detrimental to the surface finish.