Evaluating the spatiotemporal dynamics and structural resilience of the global titanium industrial chain: Insights from trade network analysis

Abstract

Titanium is a crucial raw material in the chemical industry, metallurgy, machinery manufacturing, aerospace, and other fields. Evaluating the spatiotemporal dynamics of global titanium trade patterns is essential for a comprehensive understanding of the titanium trade situation and for enhancing the stability of the titanium supply chain. To this end, this paper constructs global trade networks of titanium ore, titanium dioxide, titanium sponge, and titanium products and utilizes various network analysis methods to deeply investigate the spatiotemporal evolution of global titanium trade patterns, the topology of the trade network, and the resilience characteristics. The study reveals a growing global titanium trade with fluctuations, significantly clustered trade flows, and expanding, denser networks with optimized structures. Over the past 20 years, the trade volumes of titanium ore, titanium dioxide, and titanium products have increased to approximately 2.93, 1.80, and 1.90 times their previous levels, respectively. The global titanium trade networks present significant core–periphery structure characteristics. The centralization coefficients of the four types of titanium commodity trade networks all exceed 0.9, with clear boundaries between the core and peripheral layers, as well as differences in connectivity across the various layers of these networks. The resilience of the global titanium trade network has increased over time, with the resilience of the titanium dioxide and titanium products trade networks significantly higher than that of titanium ore and titanium sponge. However, the failure of key nodes such as China, the United States, and Germany still has a greater impact on network connectivity, and the overall ability of the network to resist intentional attacks is still limited. Finally, this paper puts forward policy recommendations to promote titanium trade cooperation, enhance the resilience of the titanium trade network, and maintain the security of the titanium supply.