This article presents a systematic literature review (SLR) on the titanium metal product value chain. Globally this value chain is fragmented, meaning that successive production stages rarely occur within the same country, and information published on the value chain is limited. The aim of this review was to collect the literature to create and elaborate on the titanium metal product value chain. The SLR followed a combined building block searching strategy and a criterion analysis to obtain relevant literature on production stages in the value chain. The value chain was based on the three main sections that comprise the titanium metal industry: the raw material, the processes and technologies, and the market. From the main sections, eight production stages were identified and discussed. Arising from the literature review, these stages will be applied as a baseline to understand the requirements for improving the underdeveloped titanium industry in South Africa.

Rapid prototyping is an effective way to build prototypes. This process, now called AM (Additive Manufacturing), is suited to realize functional single part or for small batch production. Evolution of AM is now in the way of serial production. In the field of medical applications and more precisely dentistry, AM is a way of increasing numbers of elements produced compared to classic production by lost wax casting. To increase production quality, it is necessary to have a high monitoring and control of process and properties of production. In the case of AM using (DMLS: Direct Metal Laser Sintering), a lot of parameters can have an influence on the elements production quality such as powders quality, laser behavior or sintering time… The goal of this work is to study the serial production quality using a DMLS system (Phenix System PM100). This system is used in production of cobalt-chromium elements for dental applications. The study was done on a period of 6 months with recording results of almost 120 productions and was focused on a quantity of around 7000 dental elements produced. In a first part, number of elements per production, room temperature and hygrometry, powder reloading, maintenance, production stops and new operators are recorded. Material properties of some elements produced such as dimensional properties, density, porosity and crystallographic phases are monitored. Materials analysis has led to ensure the elements quality produced by the Phenix system and results are discussed in this work. In a second part, we focused on the production analysis with the recorded data. Analysis leads to define 2 ratios: production ratio RP defined as [Elements Number]/ [Productions Number] and the efficiency production PE defined as the ratio RP/[Stopped production number]. By calculating RP and PE values with collected data on the Phenix system, a PM 100 efficiency production modeling has been established. The PM 100 production modeling can help to understand that increasing the production ratio RP value leads to have efficiency production PE high variation. On another hand, collecting production parameters leads to increase production efficiency.

SYNOPSIS This study investigates the fragmented nature of the global and local titanium metal value chains. South Africa has the fourth most abundant titanium reserves in the world. However, South Africa mainly exports titanium ore and imports value-added titanium products, which impacts the potential to derive more economic benefit from this resource. For South Africa to benefit from its titanium reserves, an understanding of the current fragmented nature of the global titanium value chain would assist in entering the global titanium industry. Information on the global and South African titanium value chains was collected by means of a desktop study. It was found that the leading countries operating within both the upstream and the downstream titanium industry are the USA, China, Japan, Russia, and Kazakhstan. The key drivers that caused fragmentation were identified as technology, markets, production costs, and the availability of titanium mineral reserves. An important outcome of this study is the identification of the local need for a technological foundation in support of downstream titanium processing to market-competitive titanium mill and powder products. Keywords: fragmentation, titanium, titanium value chain.