International Titanium Association (ITA) is pleased to announce 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award for Russell Gordon Sherman, who developed alloys and heat treating protocols for the titanium industry and pioneered the high-volume production of titanium aerospace fasteners. The ITA will formally present Sherman with the award at the TITANIUM USA 2018 Conference and Exhibition, October 7-10 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Frauke Hogue, Fellow of American Society for Materials (FASM), an ITA educational instructor and an executive and metallographer with Hogue Metallography, Pacific Palisades, CA, in a nomination form for the prestigious award, lauded Shermanâs distinguished career. âThe entire titanium industry has benefited from Shermanâs research into developing higher strength titanium (the workhorse Ti-6Al-4V alloy) through the heat treatment of solution treating and aging.â?
According to Hogue, Sherman was involved in the development of titanium alloys and heat treating protocols to raise the mechanical properties and usability of the âwonder metalâ? during the formative years of the titanium industry. He presented the initial findings from his research at Titanium Metals Corporation of America (Timet), Henderson, Nevada, at the ASMâs convention in Philadelphia in October 1955, in a paper titled âThe Heat Treatability of Ti-6Al-4V.â?
Hogue also recalled that later in Shermanâs career, during the 1960s and into the early 1970s, he worked in the industrial fastener industry where he pioneered high-volume production techniques and heat treating of titanium fasteners for the aerospace industry. This was a time when Boeing needed thousands of fasteners for its 747 commercial jet.
