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https://www.gov.uk/government/news/porton-down-scientists-on-brink-of-titanium-revolution
Interesting if the process goes beyond military applications.
Not a huge amount of forged parts in frames.
I'm not quite sure what that article is saying - it's either...
"Production of titanium (as a raw material)"
...or...
"Production of titanium components (from an existing raw material)"
I need to research things further...
The Fast forge process produces near-net shape components. Producing them from powder with forged properties...that I'd need to see to believe.
I can well understand that forgings have several operations, but how they achieve the micro-structure without working the material I don't know...You can do it with AM, but you have to forgoe heat treatment...
One of the key drivers for this is to be able to manufacture components in-theatre, where the time and costs of military logistics can seriously impair the tempo of operations - particularly if you're looking at things like drones where you don't have to go through the complexity of on-aircraft certification. The RAF have been conduction trials of ALM manufacture of titanium parts already. Quite whether that means that it delivers economies of scale in high-volume manufacturing of bike frames remains to be seen - the Chinese are quite proficient at it anyway than and frames ex-factory are less than $500 and the majority of that cost is in terms of tube preparation, welding and finishing rather than material costs.