Tremendous Benefits of Nickel for Aerospace Industry
Nickel is one of the most popular alloying metal mainly used to create austenitic (nickel-bearing) stainless steel. In the aerospace industry, nickel alloys are widely used to create discs, turbine blades and other critical and important jet engine parts because they provide excellent adhesion, wear, hardness, corrosion protection and erosion resistance. Nickel is very suitable for the applications where stress needs to be minimized. Nickel is mostly used in those aircraft’s engines which operate at very high temperatures and stresses. Some of the most important benefits of nickel which make it too usable for aerospace applications are listed below:
High strength at extremely high temperatures: Waspaloy is an excellent example of Nickel alloys for aerospace manufacturing that provides reliability and strength at higher temperatures, as this alloy can handle temperatures as high as 1600°F / 870°C. Waspaloy’s great temperature resistance ability makes it ideal for use in aircrafts where burning jet fuel can cause parts to become extremely hot for long periods of time.
Highly resistant to oxidation and corrosion: Nickel alloys like Alloy X-750 are highly resistant to oxidation, corrosion and other such type of stressful environments. These types of environments are found in pressure vessels, gas turbines, rocket engines and other airframes. Because Alloy X-750 is precipitation hardened with other versatile and resilient metals such as titanium and aluminium, it is highly resistant to oxidation and corrosion which is common in many aircraft parts.
Low expansion at high temperatures: Alloy 36 is an Nickel and Iron based alloy which contains 36% Nickel and is used in aerospace manufacturing. The main benefits of this nickel alloy is its extremely low levels of expansion at cryogenic temperatures of 500°F and above, allowing this alloy to maintain its shape and strength for longer time and in higher temperatures. Its aerospace applications are composite formation, thermostat rods, measuring devices, laser components and tanks and piping for liquefied gas storage.
Creep resistance: There are many nickel alloys for aerospace applications like Alloy 80A that have exceptional creep resistance properties. This alloy’s ability is to keep its fortitude under high degrees of stress and at high temperatures of up to 850°C/ 1562°F that makes it very useful for manufacturing the aircraft’s turbine rotors and exhaust valves.
Conclusion: With the many different benefits of nickel based alloys, it is clear that they are very important and useful to the aerospace industry. There are many nickel alloys that are used to meet the different types of aircraft needs. So, choosing one would be your decision as an aerospace manufacturer. In order to get the best quality products choose only FlightMetals as your specialty metal supplier of nickel products like AMS 5663 and many others.