Titanium and titanium alloys continue to be of interest in the CPI (Chemical Process Industry). Most recently the MTI members initiated a project on detecting titanium hydriding.
In the 2007 January issue of JOM (published by The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society), there are five articles on processing and characterizing titanium alloys.
The articles include: Mechanical Property Optimization via Microstructural Control of New Metastable Beta Titanium Alloys; Microstructural Formation in Ti Alloys: In-Situ Characterization of Phase Transformation Kinetics; The Microstructural Characterization and Simulation of Titanium Alloys Modified with Boron; Dynamic Recovery and Recrystallization in Titanium Alloys by Hot Deformation; and Direct Reduction Processes for Titanium Oxide in Molten Salt.
The same issue also has series of articles on the use of scanning probe microscopy for materials science. This technique was invented in 1981 by Binnig and Roher and has become increasingly important in the characterization of materials, including ceramics, metals and polymers. The cost has been steadily coming down resulting in more than 20,000 systems installed world wide. In the last 10 years or so, more than 20,000 articles have been published on use of atomic force microscopy. The articles in JOM illustrate the range of problems effectively studied with this technique.