Grade 5 titanium is the reference aerospace alloy: roughly the tensile strength of a good steel at about 57 % of the weight, with a passive oxide layer that makes it effectively immune to seawater and chloride attack. We print it by selective laser melting to ≥99.5 % density, so the part behaves like wrought titanium rather than a sintered approximation of it.
Ti-6Al-4V — also called Grade 5, or UNS R56400 — is an alpha-beta titanium alloy with 6 % aluminium and 4 % vanadium. The aluminium stabilises the alpha phase and raises the service temperature; the vanadium stabilises the beta phase and gives the alloy its ductility. The combination is why Grade 5 became the default titanium: it heat-treats to high strength, welds, machines, and behaves predictably over a wide temperature range at a cost far below the exotic beta alloys.
It is not titanium because it is light. It is titanium because its specific strength is the point. A titanium bracket doing the same job as a steel one typically sheds 35–40 % of the mass, which matters on anything that flies, walks or accelerates — drone frames, robot limbs, motorsport uprights, satellite hardware. The second reason is chemistry: the natural TiO₂ layer re-forms instantly when scratched, so there is no pitting, no crevice attack and no galvanic headache in marine or chloride service, and the alloy is biocompatible enough for surgical instruments and non-implant devices.
Selective laser melting is a good fit for it because titanium is hard to machine — it is gummy, it work-hardens, and it takes a lot of spindle time and tool life to carve a complex part out of billet. Printing it near-net shape means you pay for the metal you use instead of the metal you cut away, and internal channels that a drill cannot reach become ordinary. The honest caveats: titanium powder is the most expensive thing on our floor, it is the slowest metal we run, and it is a poor conductor of heat — around 7 W/m·K, roughly a seventh of aluminium — so it is never the answer for a heat sink.
Typical values for Ti-6Al-4V printed by SLM in the grades we run routinely. These are the figures we would quote from — and the ones we would flag if your application pushes past them.
Same alloy family, different post-processing or purity. The condition often matters more to the application than the grade does.
Printed, stress-relieved and support-dressed. The default condition: full density, high strength, and the layer texture visible on unsupported surfaces. Correct choice for the large majority of structural parts.
Extra-low interstitial content — tighter limits on oxygen, nitrogen, carbon and iron. That buys ductility and fracture toughness at the cost of some strength. The grade to specify when the part is medical or fracture-critical.
Hot isostatically pressed to close any residual porosity, then heat treated. The route for parts that see cyclic loading. Expect a longer lead time and a higher price, and expect it to be worth it.
Bores, bearing seats, mating faces and threads machined from the printed blank. Printed titanium cannot hold a bearing fit or a reliable thread, so anything that has to be true gets cut, not printed.
Anodising grows a controlled oxide layer. Used for colour coding, for wear resistance on sliding surfaces, and to make a part identifiable in service. Thickness and colour specified per batch.
Inconel 718 and CoCr are also available on request. Titanium powder is available in bulk for your own machines — see powder supply.
Titanium rewards careful finishing — and punishes shortcuts. These are the operations we run on it.
Supports are cut from the plate and hand-dressed. Witness marks stay on downward-facing surfaces, so we choose the build orientation to keep them off sealing faces and visible surfaces.
A controlled thermal cycle relaxes the residual stresses that build up through thousands of melt passes. This is what stops thin walls and long unsupported sections from curling.
High pressure at high temperature closes internal porosity. Reserved for fatigue-critical parts, where it changes the inspection result rather than the cosmetic one.
Mating faces, bores, bearing seats and threads are cut after printing. Allow stock on the print and we will machine to the drawing tolerance.
Parts printed onto a solid base plate come off it by wire EDM, leaving a clean, flat witness face without a heat-affected zone.
Blasting for a uniform matte surface; shot peening additionally puts the surface into compression, which is the standard way to improve titanium fatigue life.
Progressive polishing to a mirror finish for visible parts, or to reduce surface roughness in flow paths.
Type II for colour and identification, Type III (hard) for wear resistance on sliding surfaces. Thickness and colour held to a batch reference.
Titanium is the most expensive thing we print and the slowest. These are the cases where that is still the right call — and the ones where it is not.
A strategic focus for LASEM. Titanium joints and structural links carry high cyclic load while keeping the moving mass — the mass that determines actuator sizing and battery draw — as low as possible.
Topology-optimised brackets, fittings and mounts that carry the same load at a fraction of the machined mass, with no fasteners and no joints to inspect.
Complex weight-optimised geometry with integrated cable routing, in a material that shrugs off the salt air it is often operated in.
Biocompatible guides, retractors, instrument handles and housings, with internal structure that reduces weight in the surgeon’s hand. Implant-grade supply is a different chain — ask before you assume.
Propeller hardware, fittings and instrument housings that live in salt water and cannot be serviced. The corrosion argument, not the weight one.
Uprights, suspension components and heat-adjacent brackets where the design cycle is faster than the tooling cycle and every gram is fought for.
Pump components, valve bodies and internals that see aggressive media where 316L would pit. Check the specific chemistry with us first — titanium has real weaknesses in reducing acids.
Low mass, low CTE and stable in vacuum, where the design freedom of printing is worth more than the material premium.
Titanium is the right answer less often than people expect. Here is the honest comparison against everything else we run.
| Material | Process | Density | Strength | Heat | Pick it when |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ti-6Al-4V | SLM | 4.43 g/cm³ | 900–1100 MPa | ~400 °C | Strength per gram, corrosion, biocompatibility |
| 316L stainless | SLM | 7.9 g/cm³ | 480–620 MPa | ~400 °C | Corrosion resistance and ductility |
| AlSi10Mg | SLM | 2.67 g/cm³ | 330–400 MPa | ~170 °C | Light, thermally conductive, machinable |
| Copper & Cu alloys | SLM | 8.9 g/cm³ | 210–400 MPa | ~200 °C | Electrical or thermal conductivity |
| PA12 nylon | SLS | 1.01 g/cm³ | 48–50 MPa | ~120 °C | Tough, complex geometry, no supports |
| Photopolymer resins | SLA | ~1.1–1.2 g/cm³ | 40–70 MPa | ~80 °C | Detail, smoothness, transparency |
Wrestling with the cost of titanium? Tell us the load, the temperature and the environment. In a surprising number of cases 316L or AlSi10Mg does the job for a fraction of the price, and we would rather sell you that than lose you on the second order.
Tensile and yield land in the wrought range and we hold ≥99.5 % density, measured on coupons rather than assumed. The honest gaps are fatigue life and anisotropy: wrought plate has a worked grain structure, and a printed part is strongest in the plane of its layers. For static structure, printed titanium is directly comparable. For cyclic loading, specify HIP and tell us the load direction.
Three reasons stack up. The powder costs several times more per kilogram, the machine runs slower because the melt pool has to be controlled more carefully, and the finishing is harder because titanium is gummy to machine and awkward to dress. The useful way to look at it is cost per part at a given strength and mass — in those terms titanium is often the cheaper answer once the part has to fly or has to be carried.
No, and you should be suspicious of anyone who says yes. Titanium conducts heat at around 7 W/m·K against roughly 150 for AlSi10Mg and 400 for copper. If heat has to move, the material is aluminium or copper. Titanium’s job is to carry load and resist corrosion.
They can be printed, and they should not be. Printed threads are rough, dimensionally loose and strip easily, especially in a fine-pitch titanium thread. The reliable route is to print a boss or a pilot hole and cut the thread afterwards, or install a threaded insert. It adds a machining operation and removes a class of field failure.
Ti-6Al-4V ELI (Grade 23) is a well-established biocompatible material and we print surgical instruments, guides and non-implant devices in it. Implants are a different regulatory world — certified material, documented process validation, traceability to the melt, and a quality system audited for it. Ask us explicitly what the part is before assuming we can serve it.
Against the same part in steel, expect 35–40 % less mass at comparable strength — the density ratio is 4.43 to 7.9. Against aluminium the density is worse, so titanium only wins on mass if the load is high enough that the aluminium part has to be much thicker. Our engineers will run both and tell you which one is lighter, which is not always the obvious answer.
Titanium is expensive enough that the wrong choice is painful. Tell us the load, the temperature, the environment and the quantity, and we will recommend a material and quote the alternates so you can see what each decision costs.
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