Alloys

IQS Newsroom Articles on Alloys

About Alloys and Alloy Supply, Including: Alloy Suppliers, Aluminum Alloy, Brazing Alloys, Copper Alloy, Custom Alloy, High Temperature Alloys, Magnesium Alloys, Metal Alloy, Non Ferrous Alloys, Steel Alloy, Superalloys & Welding Alloys.

A metal alloy is a compound of two or more elements, at least one of which is a metallic compound. A binary alloy has two components, a ternary alloy has three and a quaternary alloy has four. The result of these combinations is a metallic substance that has significant differences from its components. Alloy suppliers offer stronger, more durable metals with more desirable properties than those of their individual components, such as increased hardness or malleability. Metals like aluminum, copper, magnesium, steel  and non ferrous metals are common metals that are alloyed to increase certain properties. This is why alloys are more often used in industrial applications. The alloy usually takes characteristics of the elements it is made from, physical properties like reactivity, density and electrical and thermal conductivity. On the other hand, the alloy's engineering properties such as tensile and shear strength, can be very different from the original materials.

When specific qualities of metals are needed for applications such as rockets and aircrafts, alloys can be made and provided by alloy suppliers to match predetermined sets of characteristics. In these cases, lightweight alloys with strong heat-resistance are created. There are also alloys with particular nuclear absorption qualities for use in nuclear reactors; there are alloys used as superconductors in very low temperature applications, and there are alloys which are designed to resist the corrosive effects of boiling salt water and are used in desalination plants. Most metals can be used in the forming of alloys, and there are many different alloys, including stainless steel, pewter, brass, bronze and more. Aluminum is often mixed with copper, magnesium or zinc to form alloys used in building products, rigid and flexible packaging and transportation. Alloy supply of all types is used in various industries: water extraction, treatment and distribution, construction, agriculture, construction and architecture, pharmaceuticals, consumer products, and manufacturing industries including oil, petroleum and chemicals. In most of the applications in which alloy metals are used, there are no acceptable or economic alternatives to alloys.

Types of alloy supply include intermetallics and superalloys. Intermetallics are alloys of two or more metals which form a new compound. These are sometimes used because they have more magnetic, superconducting and chemical properties, and they can combine ceramic and metallic properties when resistance to high temperatures and hardness is more important than the toughness and ease of processing that is more often desired. Superalloys are used mostly for their high temperature creep resistance, but they also have mechanical strength, good surface stability and both corrosion and oxidation resistance. Because of these qualities, alloy suppliers use them in applications such as aircraft and industrial gas turbines, military electric motors, chemical processing vessels and heat exchanger tubing.

In the past, most alloys have been formed by melting down the materials and then mixing them together. However, powder metallurgy is becoming a more popular method of creating alloys. This process mixes dry powders, squeezes them together under high pressure and heats them to temperatures just below their melting points, resulting in a solid, homogeneous alloy. Ion implantation is another technique by which to form alloys and uses beams of ions of carbon, nitrogen and other elements, and fires the beams into selected metals in a vacuum chamber that produces a strong, thin layer of alloy on the metal surface. Alloy suppliers also recycle, and in fact, alloy scrap is marketed as a valuable commodity and is essential to the economic production of alloys.