Do you know how titanium flanges are made?

Titanium flanges are components made from the non-ferrous metal titanium or titanium alloy, used to connect pipes to each other and attached to pipe ends. Titanium flanges have bolt holes, allowing two flanges to be tightly joined with bolts. Gaskets are used between flanges to ensure a seal. Flanged pipe fittings refer to pipe fittings with flanges (flanges or adapters). They can be produced by casting, threaded connections, or welding. A flanged connection consists of a pair of flanges, a gasket, and several bolts and nuts. The gasket is placed between the sealing surfaces of the two flanges. After the nuts are tightened, the specific pressure on the gasket surface reaches a certain value, causing deformation that fills the irregularities on the sealing surface, ensuring a tight and leak-free connection. Now, let’s explore the production process of titanium flanges.

High-quality blanks are selected and processed through blanking, heating, forming, and post-forging cooling. The forging process includes free forging, die forging, and mold forging. During production, different forging methods are selected based on the quality and quantity of the forgings.

In free forging, the shape of the forging is gradually formed through a series of basic deformation steps. The fundamental processes of free forging include upsetting, drawing, punching, bending, and cutting.

• Upsetting: This process involves forging the original blank along its axial direction, reducing its height and increasing its cross-sectional area. This operation is commonly used for forging gear blanks and other disk-shaped forgings. Upsetting is divided into full upsetting and local upsetting.
• Drawing: A forging process that increases the length of the blank while reducing its cross-section. It is often used for machining blanks of shaft-type parts such as lathe spindles and connecting rods.
• Punching: A forging process where a punch is used to create a hole through or partially through the blank.
• Bending: The process of bending the blank into a specific angle or shape.
• Rotating: A forging process where one part of the blank is rotated at an angle relative to another part.
• Cutting: The process of dividing the blank or cutting off sections.

Also known as mold forging, die forging involves forging heated blanks using molds fixed on die-forging machinery. Commonly used die-forging equipment includes die-forging hammers, hot die-forging presses, horizontal forging machines, and friction presses.

Cut flanges are produced by directly cutting the inner and outer diameters and thickness of the flange from a medium plate, followed by machining bolt holes and waterlines. The maximum diameter of such flanges is limited by the width of the medium plate.

The process of cutting strips from a medium plate and rolling them into a circle is called rolling, often used in the production of large flanges. After successful rolling, the flange can be welded, flattened, and then processed with waterlines and bolt holes.