Recent Trends in CIS Titanium Industry Developments and Research Activities

This paper gives an overview of recent activities at different fields of industry in the production and application of titanium as well as new research and development studies performed at universities and research institutions in CIS. During covered period of time since the last World Titanium conference held in Kyoto in 2007 the CIS titanium industry, like the rest of titanium world, faced significant challenges. Following a major upsurge in titanium activity that caused an increase in the capacity of existing titanium producers and new initiatives in titanium production, titanium production and applications were eliminated by world economic crisis that led to a significant reduction in the titanium output through all the titanium processing, including elaboration, extraction, melting and mill production. 2010 has brought a hope that due to the gradual recovery of world aviation industry the "bottom" is behind, and cautious optimism in an evaluation of the current status of the CIS titanium industry. An outlook of the domestic market evolution is given taking into account trend of demand, especially from the CIS commercial aerospace and shipbuilding industries. New government and non -government initiatives related to the future of titanium industry in Russia and Ukraine are discussed. On the research side, a survey of the latest research projects is presented. Amongst them, studies addressing nanostructuring of titanium and titanium alloys, targeted at physical and mechanical properties improvement are stressed. Various aspects of titanium component manufacturing are covered, especially welding and powder metallurgy.