Those of a certain age may best remember titanium as a rainbow coloured metal that was a bigjewellery hit in the late 1980s.
So why should people think that New Zealand’s a good place to develop a titanium industry –and to have a $750 million a year target for it in 10 years time?
It is the fourth most common metal in the earth’s crust, there’s plenty of places around theworld that manufacture with the material and there doesn’t appear to be a pent up demand fortitanium products.
The first part of the answer is to forget, initially, titanium as a solid metal. Imagine it firsta powder, most likely a Ti alloy powder.
Combine that with Tauranga company Titanox’s process that delivers significant quantities ofgood quality powder in a very wide range of alloys and good particle size, and another part of thepuzzle is revealed.
“That’s a key for powder metallurgy [PM] here, and its driven off that,” says TitaniumIndustry Development Association chief executive Warwick Downing. “That piece of intellectualproperty is significant.”
The Tauranga, Bay of Plenty Polytechnic’s Windemere campus-based centre is a joint venturebetween private companies, NZTE, FoRST and the Tertiary Education Commission. TiDA has purchased andinstalled a number of specialist PM consolidation machines and is the nerve centre for what is hopedto be a titanium-oriented Silicon Valley type blossoming of businesses in years to come. The focusof the center is ‘additive manufacturing’ compared taking away material such as milling.
From a physical and mechanical properties point of view, titanium has a number of advantages overits metallic competitors.
PM allows new products to be made which were not previously possible, and because precise shapesand sizes can be formed, further machining or manufacturing steps are eliminated. Examples ofproducts include hip joints, cogs, nozzles, jet engine parts, sports equipment, compressor bladesand aircraft components. Demand for titanium in products such as laptops, mobile phones, cameras,sports gear and other gadgets is also continuing to soar.
The centre also works closely with Waikato University and IRL in what Dowling describes as beinga unique set-up as TiDA focuses solely on powder metallurgy. Other centres in Sheffield, England andin Germany have PM as part of a wider mix.
“Many companies in New Zealand don’t understand what powder metallurgy is, and how we canwork with their companies,” he says.
As well as raising TiDA’s profile for and among NZ companies, some very large multinationalsare also following what the centre is up to.
Its focus is maximising titanium’s potential revenue for the country however.
The analogy Dowling gives is that New Zealand could sell a dollar’s worth of powder overseas.That powder can be made into a product, worth say $10 (for that $1 of powder). Such knowledge canoften be obtained ‘off the shelf’ as such. But, if there’s innovative product design, therecan be a $100 return on $1 worth of powder.
“That’s the economic driver,” Dowling says. “We want to sell products with smart designand clever manufacturing techniques. But it is about integrating design at the start.”
TiDA is therefore a way for companies to test Ti-based ideas and processes, and the centre has anumber of machines to measure the performance of the products it makes. While a key part of itsintellectual property is based on a superior Ti powder, the centre’s success will depend on theability of kiwi companies to come up with new applications, products and markets for PMtechnologies. Part of the centre’s advantage is that it can create a prototype directly from a CADdrawing, greatly speeding up the development process to determine whether a new product is feasibleor not.
TiDA’s success will also be underscored by being highly efficient when companies come to itwith a project. “In these circumstances, six months is a long time, three months an ideal time,”Dowling says.
“Our attitude is, here’s the concept or idea, let’s get it going as soon as possible. Wewant something out the door and in a market trial within that three to six month period. Our focusis bring products into market fast. That’s what our companies want too.”
At the same time, there are a number of large investors keeping a close eye on innovations andideas brought to TiDA.
“These people realise that when you have some projects, they may need some capital,” saysDowling. “They’re saying, give us a call, as they’re very much looking for these opportunityareas. They’re looking to build up the capability in New Zealand.”
P.S. - on the jewellery front; apparently titanium is favoured by jewellers because it isconsidered 'warm'- it always feels like it is at body temperature. The metal can be made to changecolours through different heat processes.