(AMM) Titanium quality ills stress risk of China role in US

The discovery of an irregularity in Chinese titanium sold for medical uses harkens back to an earlier incident that illustrates the potential risk to a country's role as a supplier to the U.S. market when metal for critical applications runs into quality issues.

An alloy segregation "anomaly" found in products made from 6 aluminum/4 vanadium Eli (extra low interstitial) material imported from China earlier this year has raised questions about the future of that country's titanium industry in the U.S. medical market (AMM, July 28). The products were made by G&S Titanium Inc., a Wooster, Ohio-based bar, coil and wire mill, primarily from billets produced by Dalian Sunny Titanium Industry Co. Ltd., according to Roger Geiser, chief executive officer of G&S, who also said there has been no evidence that anyone has been harmed due to the use the material involved.

However, some distributors and other sources report their medical industry customers will no longer accept medical products from Chinese titanium, regardless of the mill involved, and are...

Published

July 28, 2009

22:45 GMT

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