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I feel like there is an (undeserved) perception of titanium as this super metal that can do anything and is better than anything else.  In reality, steel can be as good or better in terms of both hardness and outright strength.  What makes titanium special (among other things) is just that it can be as strong as it is while weighing much less than comparable steels.  Much like aluminium then, it's stronger per mass but weaker (or at least similar) on an absolute scale.

  1. Curufinwe_wins

    Curufinwe_wins

    Yes and no... it is both underrated and overrated... 

     

    To give example... along the right axis, pine wood exhibits a higher specific strength than basically every single metal in existence (except for beta titanium alloys). Balsa wood can have twice the specific strength of the strongest metal alloys around.

     

    But titanium has much better temperature resistances than most steels or inconels (obviously superior to aluminium) and far better dimensional stability, while also being more workable/formable than high chrome iron/nickel alloys... better volumetric strength than any aluminum or magnesium alloy and among the best of conventional alloys (some high entropy alloys challenge things)....

     

    Point is... yes for normal people doing normal things it's overrated, but at the same point there is a reason it's used so incredibly much in the harshest/tightest environments where margins are the smallest to failure.

  2. Curufinwe_wins

    Curufinwe_wins

    Oh and hardness is a pretty damn overrated spec, since ceramics exist.

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