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Why the U.S. Navy Never Built Titanium Submarines Like Russia

14 points by 1cvmask 5y ago

pfdietz 5y ago
"To begin with, titanium is an extraordinarily rare and expensive metal" Titanium is the ninth most abundant element in the Earth's crust. Titanium ore is literally cheap as dirt. Titanium metal may be expensive, but it's not because titanium is rare.
- 1cvmask 5y ago
  They refer to titanium metal, not the ore, as being an expensive and rare metal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium
  - pfdietz 5y ago
    If they meant not much is produced, that can hardly be an objection to its use, as it's always possible to scale up production.
    - redis_mlc 5y ago
      Not affordably. Titanium ore is expensive and slow to refine. More importantly, it's insanely expensive to machine, especially large parts. I would argue that the US military is at a disadvantage in using titanium and composite airframes, since the production rate is glacial compared to aluminum, which can be easily stamped.
    - kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
      But then the production of something else would have had to suffer.
    - lazide 5y ago
      It is incredibly energy intensive to produce, as in makes Aluminum seem easy. There are many issues with the Russian economy around effective scaling of things, and while there was a time where massive amounts of electricity were easy to get and use, that time has passed and much of the infrastructure that produced it in the past is rotting and failing.
- dogma1138 5y ago
  Russia had so much titanium that it used it to make razorblades and even street lamps, it had far less access to steel and especially high end steel so it experimented with titanium for a lot of weird applications including submarines. It did became quite expert at machining and more importantly open air welding of titanium.
  - mc32 5y ago
    I wonder why they didn't leverage their Ti mfg prowess into mfg'ing Ti consumer products such as Ti flashlights, Ti tools, Ti bike frames, etc. Even Apple got on the Ti bandwagon to prop up their flagging laptop line before they xitioned to Intel CPUs
    - lazide 5y ago
      Russia has always struggled to export goods effectively due to relative lack of easy access to year round ports. They also don’t have effective investment or capital use due to corruption. Also, it’s a massive country and moving things around is hard, especially with the often unco-operative weather. So many reasons.
    - dogma1138 5y ago
      Probably because that was during the USSR and by the 90’s everything collapsed and oil was easier to export than titanium. I don’t think much of their manufacturing capacity and institutional knowledge as far as processing titanium survived the collapse of the USSR.
dimitar 5y ago
Other reasons: - The US had better submarine-launched ballistic missiles and operated close to Soviet waters; by contrast the Soviet Union needed to sneak past NATO and other US allies in order to get to patrol areas. The priorities are different. - The main producer of titanium in those years was the Soviet Union, and the US maintained a strategic reserve of the metal, which had uses in airplane building.
redis_mlc 5y ago
The SR-71 used titanium ... from Russia. :) https://wisconsinmetaltech.com/titanium-and-the-sr-71/ https://wisconsinmetaltech.com/titanium-and-the-sr-71/ Titanium is used for fasteners in the 787 because aluminum reacts (galvanic corrosion) with carbon, used in the fuselage and wings. As a result, it's 15% by weight. https://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/qtr_4_06/article_04_2.html https://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/qtr_...

14 points by 1cvmask 5y ago

"To begin with, titanium is an extraordinarily rare and expensive metal" Titanium is the ninth most abundant element in the Earth's crust. Titanium ore is literally cheap as dirt. Titanium metal may be expensive, but it's not because titanium is rare.

1cvmask 5y ago
They refer to titanium metal, not the ore, as being an expensive and rare metal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium
- pfdietz 5y ago
  If they meant not much is produced, that can hardly be an objection to its use, as it's always possible to scale up production.
  - redis_mlc 5y ago
    Not affordably. Titanium ore is expensive and slow to refine. More importantly, it's insanely expensive to machine, especially large parts. I would argue that the US military is at a disadvantage in using titanium and composite airframes, since the production rate is glacial compared to aluminum, which can be easily stamped.
  - kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
    But then the production of something else would have had to suffer.
  - lazide 5y ago
    It is incredibly energy intensive to produce, as in makes Aluminum seem easy. There are many issues with the Russian economy around effective scaling of things, and while there was a time where massive amounts of electricity were easy to get and use, that time has passed and much of the infrastructure that produced it in the past is rotting and failing.
dogma1138 5y ago
Russia had so much titanium that it used it to make razorblades and even street lamps, it had far less access to steel and especially high end steel so it experimented with titanium for a lot of weird applications including submarines. It did became quite expert at machining and more importantly open air welding of titanium.
- mc32 5y ago
  I wonder why they didn't leverage their Ti mfg prowess into mfg'ing Ti consumer products such as Ti flashlights, Ti tools, Ti bike frames, etc. Even Apple got on the Ti bandwagon to prop up their flagging laptop line before they xitioned to Intel CPUs
  - lazide 5y ago
    Russia has always struggled to export goods effectively due to relative lack of easy access to year round ports. They also don’t have effective investment or capital use due to corruption. Also, it’s a massive country and moving things around is hard, especially with the often unco-operative weather. So many reasons.
  - dogma1138 5y ago
    Probably because that was during the USSR and by the 90’s everything collapsed and oil was easier to export than titanium. I don’t think much of their manufacturing capacity and institutional knowledge as far as processing titanium survived the collapse of the USSR.

dimitar 5y ago

Other reasons: - The US had better submarine-launched ballistic missiles and operated close to Soviet waters; by contrast the Soviet Union needed to sneak past NATO and other US allies in order to get to patrol areas. The priorities are different. - The main producer of titanium in those years was the Soviet Union, and the US maintained a strategic reserve of the metal, which had uses in airplane building.

redis_mlc 5y ago

The SR-71 used titanium ... from Russia. :) https://wisconsinmetaltech.com/titanium-and-the-sr-71/ https://wisconsinmetaltech.com/titanium-and-the-sr-71/ Titanium is used for fasteners in the 787 because aluminum reacts (galvanic corrosion) with carbon, used in the fuselage and wings. As a result, it's 15% by weight. https://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/qtr_4_06/article_04_2.html https://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/qtr_...