Quote:
Originally Posted by TigerDude
On the titanium thing, a significant part of this is that titanium has a finite fatigue life. With steel, you can design so that you can stress it infinitely and it never fails. Titanium does not have this point, so each stress of the hull lessens its life. US subsafe procedures are to go to test depth basically every time out. Those titanium subs wouldn't last doing that. Same principle applies to soviet titanium fighters. There are many on the market at the airframe hour limit for the fatigue reason.
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I thought it was aluminum that has a finite fatigue life... Our fighter planes have a flight hour limit because a lot of the load is carried by aluminum (thus the reason why peace time G limits are lower than war time). Also, titanium is routinely used as a lighter alternative to steel for connecting rods in high performance cars and motorcycles that need to last the life of the vehicle whereas aluminum is unheard of outside drag racing (where short part lifespans are expected).
But getting back on topic...