Titanium alloys are indeed being used more and more frequently in the field of electronic consumer products

Titanium alloys are indeed being used more and more frequently in the field of electronic consumer products. Since 2023, mainstream 3C manufacturers such as Honor, Apple, and Samsung have begun to introduce titanium alloy materials to varying degrees.
Titanium alloys have various advantages, making them suitable for consumer electronics. It is hailed as the “all-round metal”, featuring light weight and high strength. Its strength is 1.3 times that of aluminum alloys, 1.6 times that of magnesium alloys, and 3.5 times that of stainless steel. Meanwhile, titanium alloys also have good resistance to wet chlorine gas corrosion. They can maintain a high specific strength under high temperature conditions and still have good properties such as high strength, high plasticity, and high toughness under low temperature conditions.
For example, the Apple iPhone 15 Pro series phones adopt a brand-new titanium metal body. Compared with the surgical-grade stainless steel of previous-generation products, titanium metal has stronger corrosion resistance, higher hardness, and is thinner and lighter. The weight of the iPhone 15 Pro Max is reduced compared to the iPhone 14 Pro Max. Samsung’s Galaxy S24 series phones are also expected to adopt titanium alloy middle frames. Honor’s released thin and large internal folding flagship phone, Honor Magic Vs2, uses innovative materials such as the Luban titanium alloy hinge.
However, there are certain difficulties in processing titanium alloys. Their thermal conductivity is low, the heat dissipation and cooling effects are poor during the processing, the tool wears severely, the processing accuracy and surface quality are not easy to guarantee, and they have high chemical activity and are prone to react with the tool material at high temperatures. Nevertheless, the development of 3D printing technology provides support for the application of titanium alloys in the field of consumer electronics. 3D printing does not require molds and mechanical processing. It can directly transform the design draft into an entity, simplify the production process, reduce costs, and be able to manufacture parts with complex shapes, effectively solving the problems of titanium alloy material forming and the pain points of technical mass production.
With the increasing personalized demands for consumer electronic products, the combination of titanium alloys and 3D printing technology can not only make the products lighter but also bring greater innovation and freedom to the appearance design to meet consumers’ personalized customization needs. In the future, the application of titanium alloys in the field of consumer electronics is expected to further expand. At the same time, the market size of 3D printing is also growing rapidly. Its advantages in improving the yield rate and reducing the manufacturing cost will promote the accelerated application of this process in the field of consumer electronics. Many listed companies are also accelerating related layouts, building a metal 3D printing industrial ecological chain, and improving the technical system, etc.
Overall, titanium alloys have the advantages of high specific strength and lightweight, as well as the assistance of 3D printing technology, making their application in consumer electronic products have broad development prospects. But currently, the application of titanium alloys is also limited to some extent by factors such as processing difficulty and cost, and continuous improvement and optimization are needed in technology and process.