Exploring Titanium Fasteners: Benefits and Industrial Uses
Understanding Titanium Fasteners
Titanium fasteners are built using Titanium alloy, which shows outstanding mechanical properties at sub-zero and elevated temperatures. Besides, titanium fasteners reduce the weight of the assembly, providing the same strength as steel fasteners.
That’s why they are essential in applications where slight weight differences make a huge impact, such as aerospace or aviation industries.
Titanium fasteners come in various grades, and every grade has its unique properties. Titanium alloy nuts show extraordinary corrosion resistance in a number of the process streams and stay non-magnetic even if you severely hard work them.
Titanium fasteners have machinability characteristics similar to stainless steel fasteners. But they need more power, higher integrity, and lower speed because of their high work hardening rate.
You would see titanium screws in Boat Shafts, Pump Shafts, Heat Exchangers, Pressure Vessel, Marine, Petroleum, and many other applications.
Titanium alloys show excellent characteristics when it comes to shielding the application against corrosion. That’s why sectors like Nuclear, Marine, Petroleum, Textile, Chemicals, Food processing units, Pulp and paper, and many other industries use titanium fasteners.
Titanium fasteners have increased chromium to protect the application from corrosion and at the same time possess twice as much yield strength as stainless steel fasteners at the same room temperature. 
The Specifications Of Titanium Fasteners
Here are some of the unique features of titanium fasteners:
- Outstanding weight to strength ratio
- Practically inert to chlorine, chloride, and seawater.
- Strong, corrosion-resistant, and lightweight
Saltwater Resistant
Titanium bolts and screws have a remarkable ability to rapidly regrow the passive protective layer while surrounded by oxygen. As a result, they are unparallel when it comes to using salt water. Here are some features why you should use titanium fasteners in saltwater:
Chloride, Chlorine & Other Media
Like saltwater, titanium’s robust and protective oxide film that regenerates in oxygen makes it highly resistant to oxidizing environments. Also resistant to chlorides solutions, including hypochlorites, chlorates, perchlorates, sodium chlorite, and chlorine dioxide.
Chemical Specifications
Here is the chemical specification of titanium fasteners:
| Grade 2 Titanium | Ti | Fe | O | C | N | H |
| Max | Bal | .30% | .25% | .08% | .03% | .015% |
| Min | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Grade 5 Titanium | Ti | Al | V | Fe | O | C | N | H |
| Max | Bal | 6.75% | 4.5% | .30% | .20% | .08% | .05% | .015% |
| Min | – | 5.5 | 3.5 | – | – | – |
| Grade 2 Titanium | Ti | Fe | Pd | O | C | N | H |
| Max | Bal | .30% | .25% | .25% | .08% | .03% | .015% |
| Min | – | – | .12% | – | – | – |
Types Of Titanium Fasteners
- Bolts
- Nuts
- Washers
- Screws
- Anchor Fasteners
- Threaded rods
Common Surfaces Of Titanium Fasteners
When you form a coating on the surface of a workpiece, that is called surface treatment. The purpose of using materials and various surface treatment methods is to make the titanium fasteners more durable.
Here are the methods and chemicals you will see in titanium fasteners:
Electroplating
In this process, the electroplated component is mixed in an aqueous solution. The solution contains the compound, and you should pass electricity through that solution to deposit the electroplating solution on the metal object.
In most cases, this process involves copper, galvanizing, copper-nickel alloy, chromium, etc. Sometimes you would see phosphating, black boiled, and similar kinds of chemicals.
Galvanizing
In this method, you have to submerge the titanium member in a molten zinc plating bath, maintaining the 810 degrees Celsius temperature..
Sandblasting
In this process, white corundum is generally used for titanium fasteners metal coating. The pressure stays 0.45 Mpa.
Pickling
Acid pickling is a quick method to remove the surface reaction layer. As a result, the surface will not produce pollution from another element. You can use both HF-HNO3 and HF-HCL acid pickling solution over titanium.
Mechanical Properties Of Titanium Fasteners
Mechanical Properties
Tensile Data for Titanium Grade 2
| Temperature | Yield Strength at | Ultimate tensile at .2% offset | Elongation |
| Room Temperature | 70 ksi | 50 ksi | 28 % |
| 212 °F | 56 ksi | 37 ksi | 31 % |
| 392 °F | 41 ksi | 28 ksi | 37 % |
| 572 °F | 33 ksi | 18 ksi | 43 % |
| 752 °F | 27 ksi | 13 ksi | 38 % |
| 842 °F | 26 ksi | 11 ksi | 34 % |
Tensile Data for Titanium Grade 5 
| Temperature | Yield Strength at | Ultimate tensile at .2% offset | Elongation |
| Room Temperature | 138 ksi | 128 ksi | 14 % |
| 300 °F | 121 ksi | 105 ksi | 16 % |
| 500 °F | 110 ksi | 93 ksi | 17 % |
| 700 °F | 100 ksi | 82 ksi | 18 % |
Tensile Data for Titanium Grade 7
| Temperature | Yield Strength at | Ultimate tensile at .2% offset | Elongation |
| Room Temperature | 50 ksi | 40 ksi | 20 % |
| 200 °F | 57 ksi | 40 ksi | 28 % |
| 400 °F | 41 ksi | 24 ksi | 41 % |
| 600 °F | 32 ksi | 15 ksi | 38 % |
"Grade" In Titanium Fasteners
Titanium is a new addition in the fasteners industry and growing in popularity day by day. If you need to use titanium fasteners, at first, it seems quite easy to pick one. However, that is not the case as there are several options with different chemical specifications.
Let’s look at the differences in brief:
Grade 2 titanium
Grade 2 is the most common type and is widely used in the fasteners industry. Grade 2 titanium contains 99% titanium and is famous for commercially pure titanium.
Grade 2 titanium has outstanding corrosion resistance capability. As a result, they are widely used. You need corrosion resistance properties such as saltwater/seawater. Furthermore, they are also resistant to other chemicals such as acid solutions, chloride.
They are very lightweight, and you can use them in applications where weight minimizing is very crucial.
Grade 5 titanium
This type of titanium has additional strength. It contains 90% titanium and other chemicals such as vanadium, aluminum, etc. As a result, they are twice stronger than steel fasteners with the same corrosion-resistant capability of grade two.
Grade 7 titanium
You won’t see grade 7 titanium so often in the fasteners industry as the other two grades mentioned earlier. Grade 7 has increased corrosion resistance. This grade has .15% palladium, and that increases the corrosion resistance capability.
As a result, you should use grade 7 titanium fasteners where the risk of chemical corrosion is exceptionally high.
Grade 23 titanium
Grade 23 titanium has improved mechanical features and can work even at cryogenic temperatures −150 °C (−238 °F) to absolute zero (−273 °C or −460 °F). This titanium is less likely to crack or suffer from fatigue. This grade is ideal for extreme weather conditions such as the aerospace industry.
So, next time before buying titanium fasteners, you should know the grade of titanium you will need for your application.
Benefits Of Using Titanium Fasteners
Here are some of the benefits of using titanium fasteners.
Strength to Weight Ratio
It has a density of 4.51gram per cubic meter, lower than copper, nickel, and steel. But the strength of titanium is higher than all of those metals. As a result, fasteners built with titanium are solid and light.
Can Work Under Any Temperature
When it comes to tackling temperature, no other metal can withstand titanium. Titanium fasteners can work under the lowest (absolute zero) temperature. And if you have any application that works at 600 degrees C, titanium can also handle that. 
Magnet and Toxicity Preventive
Titanium is a non-magnetic material, and you can be assured that even a high magnetic field can not magnetize titanium. Besides, they are not harmful for the human body.
Resistant to Damping
It has less damping time than other metal fasteners and you can use them in vibrating applications.
Outstanding Corrosion Resistance
They are highly corrosion resistant and you can use them in those environments where the chances are correios is higher.
Industries Dependent On Titanium Fasteners
Titanium fasteners are becoming more and more popular these days, and several industries badly need titanium fasteners. Here are some of the sectors that need titanium fasteners for their applications:
Nuclear Industry
In nuclear reactor titanium, titanium alloys are mediatory. As a result, they need a number of titanium fasteners.
Medical Industry
As a biophilic metal, titanium, the medical industry is widely dependent on titanium fasteners. They are used in various medical devices used in the body.
Electronic Equipment
Mobile phone and computer companies used to use steel fasteners in the past. BUt mobile phones and computers deal with electricity, and electricity creates a magnetic field. Steel fasteners are vulnerable to magnetic fields and disturb the signal of the network.
On the other hand, titanium is immune to a magnet. Therefore, they last long and provide unhampered network signals.
Aerospace Industry
The Aerospace industry largely depends on titanium fasteners. Titanium fasteners are stronger than steel and also lightweight. The strength-to-weight ratio has a high impact in the aerospace industry.
Furthermore, titanium alloys aren’t attracted by magnets and come with excellent elastic properties. As a package, titanium and titanium alloy is the best you can get for aerospace, industrial applications.
Titanium Fasteners Stronger Than Steel Fasteners
Titanium becomes dramatically stronger when alloyed with vanadium, aluminum, and some other materials. Stronger than many plates of steel. If you consider the sheer strength, titanium alloys will easily defeat any medium to low-grade stainless steel.
However, titanium is less strong than the highest grade steel. But if you consider other properties than titanium fasteners have many advantages that you can not achieve from steel.
The Value of Titanium Fasteners
Titanium fasteners may be pricier than steel or other metal fasteners, but they can give you those advantages that no other metal can. So, yes, if you think of longevity and best performance, titanium fasteners are definitely worth it.
Conclusion
Titanium fasteners are relatively new in the industry, but they come with some unique characteristics that many other metals don’t have. But it would help if you were careful about which grade of titanium fasteners you need. You also should pick your titanium fasteners manufacturer carefully. Because the product quality always depends on the experience and skill of the manufacturer.
