There seems to be a lack of understanding on the technical aspects of Titomic's products so thought I'd hop in despite being a longtime lurker. For reference, I have a background in the aerospace industry and have done past research into titanium.
AnnT does raise concerns which have some validity, but it appears to be the arguments of someone trying to misinform those who don't have a background in material science. I will address his points and also make some notes below.
"UTS and elongation do not demonstrate fatigue properties"
This is technically true, but you can infer fatigue properties from the UTS and elongation results. Fatigue occurs due to crack propagation over time from cyclical loads, and a key factor which influences the rate of propagation is the plasticity/ductility of the material, which is, in turn, a function of stress and strain. Generally, the more ductile a material, the better it is at handling fatigue. An example people may be familiar with is a crack in a windshield, which grows rapidly because the windshield is comparatively brittle. The good elongation properties also help with creep, which is another failure mode similar to fatigue.
AnnT is correct in that the tests done so far do not validate fatigue qualities to the standard required by customers who may want to use titanium to build
structural aircraft parts. You would want a proper S-N curve for that. However, the properties demonstrated so far make fatigue resistance very promising, and it's important to note that a reason why metal 3D printing is predominantly used for rapid prototyping instead of structural components in the aerospace industry is that traditional methods have terrible fatigue resistance.
From Titomic's current agreements, the potential to manufacture structural components on aircraft is not reflected in the share price, and it will take time for it to be fully validated and ready for commercial use. However, the potential is enormous, and I believe it's likely that Titomic's method will be
cost-effective compared to traditional manufacturing which has up to 90% material waste, significant capex and machining time.
"It was done using commercially pure titanium rather than Ti-6Al-4V"
Yes, the preliminary test results weren't done using aerospace grade titanium powder, but Titomic is planning on testing that. And while I'm not an expert compared to true material scientists, I don't see any fundamental reasons why aerospace grade powder tests will fail to obtain similar results to commercially pure powder. And frankly, the results for that are so incredible already I'd be concerned that they were faked if they didn't come out of highly reputable, independent research organisations.
"Not god's gift to AM and not a billion dollar company"
TKF is still groundbreaking technology that will replace some traditional manufacturing methods and allow new industries to utilise titanium.
And LOL, this is why Titomic should have moved the States and got venture capital funding. Then they will actually have investors who understand the company and would be HAPPY that Titomic dropped exclusivity for a startup. Seriously, my first reaction to that news was OF COURSE, why were Titomic even entertaining exclusive rights in the defence sector.
Check out Relativity Space, a rocket company who developed their own large 3D printers for manufacturing. They talk a good talk but are late to the game in the small launch industry which is why I doubt their rockets will see much use. The valuable part of the company is around the 3D printer they built, and they just RAISED USD140 MILLION IN A SINGLE ROUND. That's more than Titomic's entire market cap, and their technology is just a jacked up wire feedstock printer with some fancy 'machine learning' software that probably doesn't work.
I've been watching Titomic for a while, and took a position at ~$1 when it was clear the market was being irrational. Looking forward to further announcements. Hope y'all enjoyed some solid DD for a first post
(20min delay)