Abstract
In development of continuous fiber reinforced titanium alloy matrix composites (TMCs), the enormous production cost resulting from preliminary forming and elaborate tooling for consolidation is the fatal difficulty for practical application. In order to reduce the production cost, superplastic-formable TMC sheets (SCS-6/Ti-4.5Al-3V-2Fe-2Mo) were developed, and deformation characteristics and cavitation behavior were investigated. In this study a new low-cost-manufacturing process for titanium matrix composite blade has been developed. This process consists of three steps : (i) consolidation of flat TMC panels of 20mm thickness, (ii) superplastic forming to twist the TMC panel and (iii) machining of the twisted TMC to a final blade configuration. Using this process, production cost of a TMC blade can be reduced to 1/5 of the cost for the TMC blade fabricated by the conventional manufacturing process.
