Posted by Geeky T-t Link: All you wanted to know about titanium
on November 4, 2009, 10:12 pm, in reply to "Spotted earlier, above the East End of London"
...Plastic Forming, Diffusion Bonded. The Typhoon foreplanes, that is.
A bit like Supercalifragilistic..., except a bit more scientific.
They lay sheets of titanium cut-outs on top of each other. Then blow them up under very high temperature (around 1000 deg C?) and pressure, only some bits have release agent on them to stop them sticking. The end result is like a lilo inflated in a mould and then frozen solid.
Result: an enormously strong but light structure, relatively cheaply. Which is a good thing. If the foreplane stopped working the aircraft would fall out of the sky within microseconds as it is aerodynamically unstable (like a dart thrown backwards) to make it manouevrable. It could be the future for much bigger things. 
Your friendly neighbourhood quaquaversal quidnunc...
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