53201

Contamination of steel shot from titanium [Italy] 

September 29, 2009

To all,
we are going to use a shot peening machine to process both titnium and steel parts. The used shots are S230, i.e. steel themselves. For the titanium parts we foresee a chemical decontamination after peening from steel. What about steel parts? Do they need to be decontaminated by the titanium particles inevitably present into the shot flow? If yes How can we decontaminate?

GIGOTTI MAURICE
manufacturing engineer - Italy

There is always the possibility of cross contamination no matter what steps are taken. If you have enough volume, it is highly suggested to get 2 different machines dedicated specifically to each separate process. This is normal in the aircraft industry.

AF Kenton Nova Finishing Systems Inc. Huntingdon Valley, PA

From a corrosion standpoint at least, I wouldn't worry too much about titanium particles embedded in steel. However steel particles embedded in titanium is a big problem. Prevention, i.e. using dedicated non-ferrous shot media for anything that isn't carbon steel, tends to be a much better option than decontaminating the parts after you have blasted steel into the surface.

Ray Kremer Stellar Solutions, Inc. McHenry, Illinois

The maximum volume rate will be: 24 titanium items and 8 300M items per month. It doesn' t seem to be very high.
Neverthless we are worried only about the contamination of titanium on steel. So there is no way to perform this decontamination? However Is there any possibility to reduce this risk?

Mr Gigotti
- Italy