Utilizing equal channel angular pressing for titanium powder consolidation

Titanium and its alloys represent a very attractive group of materials due to their specific combination of physical and chemical properties melting point, low density, fatigue strength and corrosion resistance. All of the mentioned properties make this material important for wide range of industrial applications such as aerospace, automotive and biomedical industry. Despite property supremacy over some conventional metals and alloys titanium is still rather expensive material mostly due to high production costs. Main problem occurring during process of Ti production is its high reactivity wit oxygen at elevated temperatures. Since Ti reactivity grows with temperature, finding a way to produce titanium shapes at relatively low temperatures presents a very interesting field of research. Previous attempts of solving this issue turned to powder m isostatic pressing, hot isostatic pressing etc. Equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) was developed primarily as a severe plastic deformation method with main goal of reducing grain size of metals but recently it has showed some advantages over conventional powder metallurgy procedures. This article will give a concise overview of the principles and possibilities of ECAP as titanium powder consolidation procedure.