I've been discovering just how completely ignorant I am about all things metal. I would like to learn as much as (relatively!) possible about industry-specific ones such as titanium and aluminum. For example, we use aluminum tubing for some trekking poles; how would weight:strength:wall thickness compare with titanium?

My basic question is, does anyone know of a good textbook or online resource for such knowledge (realizing that it wouldn't be geared toward outdoor goods, of course!). Thanks-

you could probably start with Wikipedia. The articles on the elements appear to be scholarly.

Hi Brad

You had better factor in cost of materials and cost of machining. as well. Al is cheap; Ti is horrible.

Cheers

Titanium is quite brittle and not easy to work. Does not sound good for a tent pole that.
Aluminium (or Aluminum in the non-metric world ,-) )on its own is too soft, once you bent your tent poles they would stay more or less in that shape (Young's Modulus is the magic word). My tent poles claim to have strontium as one ingredient.

There are a number of books.

"Engineer To Win" by Carroll Smith, a race car guys guide to metallurgy and high performance race cars, written in 1985 so a little dated. But good. (Amazon.com)

"The New Science of Strong Materials" by J E Gordon, also a little dated.9amazon.com)

"Bicycle Metallurgy for the cyclist" by Hayduk (amazon.com)I owned the version published about 1982, and there may be a second edition.

Depending upon how serious you are in terms of "buying" knowledge, there are several technical books such as:

Titanium and Titanium Alloys: Fundamentals and Applications by Christoph Leyens and Manfred Peters (Hardcover - Oct 17, 2003)
Buy new: $305.00 $260.66
11 Used & new from $195.00 (amazon.com)

You can find a number of metallurgy texts (used) on amazon.com in the subfields of physical metallurgy, mechanical metallurgy and there are specialized books on specific metal alloy classes as well.

A general text that is sometimes available inexpensively is "Engineering Materials: Properties and Selection" by Budinski and Budinski - 6th edition or later.

> Titanium is quite brittle and not easy to work.

Ahhh... I don't think so.
Commercially Pure (CP) titanium is not brittle and is quite workable. I can spin it.
6Al4V Ti alloy is extremely hard but can be worked hot. It will crack if bent very far when cold, especially if there are scratches or scribe marks on it.

> Aluminium on its own is too soft, once you bent your tent poles
NO-ONE makes (good) tent poles out of CP aluminium. 7001 and 7075 alloys are often used.

Cheers

Thanks, everyone-
I wasn't specifically thinking Al or Ti for tent or trekking poles, really, just an off-the-top example at the time. I have a couple projects lurking in my head that I'd like to research a bit before surprising people with them. Of course, I do have to be able to afford the materials...

James, thanks, that's pretty much what I was looking for! I had thought of talking to bike shops, but for some reason it hadn't occurred to me that there'd be a bicycle metallurgy book.

ok, I see, pure Titanium is said to be ductile. But still a bit more tricky to work with, one of the reasons why Ti equipment is not that cheap....

>>NO-ONE makes (good) tent poles out of CP aluminium. 7001 and 7075 alloys are often used.

well, the question was about aluminium as such. Cannot imagine using CP Al tent poles more than once.
Of course there are many alloys which are more suitable.

What about a well sorted library, sometimes quite helpful? Friend of mine working in a book shop astonished some customers with this suggestion, no one seems to consider that these days (I know,http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=light+metal+structure+books&btnG=Search&meta= is just easier)