Materials for Design

Titanium (Ti)

My five-year-old son has a neoprene wetsuit with the word ‘titanium’ pasted across the arm. Like so many materials with high-grade properties titanium, when it is applied to consumer facing products, fits into our modern day obsession with ‘advanced materials’, which sometimes goes just a little bit too far. The ‘advanced’ profile of titanium has grown since its commercial introduction in the 1950s due to its use in high-tech applications that exploit its incredibly high strength-to-weight ratio.

Discovered by the British chemist Reverend William Gregor in 1791, titanium is named after the Greek god Titan, ‘the incarnation of natural strength’. It is the ninth most abundant element on earth and has the highest strength-to-weight ...