I did military engineering for some time so we worked with a lot of Titanium, but when machining it we were always told to remove scraps ASAP and bag them up because if a single spark from a welding torch got on the pile then it would go up in flames and can even explode. To demonstrate this the instructor got a pile of titanium shavings and lit them on fire. We were never instructed why this happens and googling it I could only find stuff about titanium powder in pure oxygen or the melting point of titanium.
In: Physics
A lot of metals are very flammable. In fact a piece of metal rusting is just burning very slowly, and metal shavings exploding are rusting very fast.
Normally you can’t just set a piece of metal on fire because you cannot heat up enough of it fast enough and have enough air for it to kickstart a reaction. But in powder form or shavings form the surface area of the metal increases dramatically, while each particle is small enough that it can easily come up to temp. Iron, aluminum, titanium and many other metals can all undergo this reaction. Thermite, which is very dangerous, is just metal powder and rust powder. Even a common piece of steel wool can easily catch fire and go up in flames. Do not underestimate the danger, they burn up fast and they get up hotter than most flames you’ve come across, and they don’t go out easily either.
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