Microforming of titanium – forming behaviour at elevated temperature

Titanium is applied in a wide range of technical applications, especially when high strength in combination with light weight or corrosion resistance is demanded. Titanium is also a popular material for implants in the field of medical technology due to its specific properties like the superb biocompatibility, the elastic behaviour matching that of the human bone, the radiological transparency and the galvanic neutrality. For the production of these partly small-sized implants manufacturing methods with high accuracy and close tolerances are necessary. When forming processes are used to manufacture the miniaturised medical components the size effects occurring with miniaturisation have to be considered. The size effects are amongst others responsible for an increased scatter of process parameters and a reduced accuracy, thereby reducing the process stability. Also the limited formability of titanium and titanium alloys at room temperature is a drawback of forming microparts made of titanium. The main objective of the present study is to investigate the forming behaviour of titanium at microscale and enlarge the formability by means of forming at elevated temperature.