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Nickel Alloys
Nickel alloys are metal alloys in which nickel has the highest percentage of any other element used in its composition. Nickel is an incredibly common alloying element since it is both highly versatile and able to alloy with almost any metal. As a whole, nickel-based alloys offer heat-resistance as well as high corrosion-resistance against a broad spectrum of corrosive media such as chemical, alkalis, petroleum and seawater.
Some common elementsthat nickel is alloyed with to form nickel alloys included iron, copper,chromium, manganese, carbon and silicon. As a result of the wide range ofelements that nickel is able to alloy to, there is a correspondingly vastnumber of industries that nickel alloys are utilized in including: medical,used in eye-glass frames, hypodermic tubing, surgical sutures and more; powergeneration, for use in steam turbine power plants, nuclear power plants andvaried other applications; military, used in weapons, vehicles andidentification tags; industrial manufacturing, for use in corrosive materialhandling and various machinery such as direct current (dc) motors orgenerators; marine, for shipping vessels, off-shore oil rigs and small partssuch as springs or fasteners; and aerospace, for use in gas turbines, jet enginesand components such as piping and shims.
There are a vast number of nickel alloys, which are oftencategorized in terms of their second most prominent element, thecharacteristics they display, or the uses they are being put to. For instance, anickel alloy with the composition of 55% nickel and 45% titanium is referred toas Nitinol, also called a nickel-titanium alloy, or a shape memory alloy. Anotherexample is a nickel alloy with a composition of 80% nickel and 20% chromium,called Nichrome, also called a nickel-chromium alloy, or an electricalresistance alloy. Some other popular types of nickel alloys include Hastelloy,Cupronickel, Monel, Inconel, German silver and Alumel. The many nickel alloysare typically broken down into four main types in regards to theircharacteristics: low-expansion alloys, which include nickel alloys that arespecifically engineered to have low thermal expansion; electrical resistancealloys, which are nickel alloys with a high nickel content; soft magneticalloys, which are nickel alloys with high magnetic permeability and lowsaturation induction; and shape memory alloys, which are nickel alloys that arecapable of returning to their prior shape upon undergoing the appropriateheating schedule. Electrical resistance alloys include two sub-categories:resistance alloys and heating alloys, which contain silicone and possiblyniobium in addition to nickel and chromium.
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Nickel Alloys – Best Stainless & Alloys | Nickel Alloys – Aero Specialties Material Corp. |
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Nickel Alloys – Falcon Stainless & Alloys Corporation | Nickel Alloys – Best Stainless & Alloys |