Low and controlled expansion alloys are iron-nickel alloys that display extremely low expansion rates around room temperature, and are used in industries such as electronics, medical, oil and gas, aerospace, telecommunications, shipping, and non-commercial applications such as white goods.
Many industries and non-commercial applications require the properties of metals to be maintained over a range of temperatures and stable physical dimensions. Furthermore with the development in technology, there is an ever increasing requirement for high degrees of accuracy. Heat deformation can compromise accuracy in optical instruments, processing machines, measuring machines, and precision components, so low and controlled expansion thermal characteristic metals are essential to maintain stable high performance.
Applications for low and controlled expansion alloys are numerous but include; aircraft, nuclear power material, automobiles, tooling for aerospace composites, radio and electronic devices, structural supports in precision equipment such as thermostats, measuring devices, and lasers, cryogenic instruments, precision measuring devices, and bimetal thermostats. As well as being extensively used in the opto-mechanical industry, they are also widely used in the most common household electric appliances.
Iron and nickel have very similar coefficients of thermal expansion. However, combining nickel and iron results in the creation of an alloy for which the coefficient of expansion is reduced significantly. Research in the 1920s found that an iron-nickel alloys containing approximately 36% nickel showed virtually no thermal expansion at or close to, room temperature. Its also did not vary significantly with changes in temperature.
Metallurgists have since produced variations by altering the composition percentage and adding small proportions of other metals to create several exotic materials with unique expansion characteristics formulated to suit specific applications.
For more information on how Future Alloys low expansion metals can suit your application, contact one of our material specialists.
