Technical Services
Materion Brush Performance Alloys offers customers more than just superior materials. Driven by our customers’ complete satisfaction, Materion Brush Performance Alloys is your partner for unmatched customer support. Materion Brush Performance Alloys’ strength lies in our team of exceptional technical, manufacturing and customer support members. We have assembled an impressively credentialed staff of experts in materials science, component design and manufacturing methodologies. From assistance with product design and development to innovative manufacturing practices as well as courteous and accommodating customer service, our team members work with customers to provide material solutions that best meet their individual needs.
Material Selection
We can assist you in sorting through the large variety of high performance alloys and help select materials that will provide the best solution for your application, performance goals, processing criteria and cost considerations
Fabrication and Processing Assistance
We have application-specific technical specialists that assist customers with any problems they may experience in processing our materials. We can provide you with detailed guidelines and information on operations such as machining, welding, brazing, soldering, heat treating, cleaning, EDM, etc. Much of this information is available in the form of brochures or technical briefs.
Industry Contacts & Certified Suppliers
In response to a need beyond internal capabilities, Materion Brush Performance Alloys can refer the user to a supplier with demonstrated expertise in manufacturing copper alloy products with specialized equipment and technology. This includes vendors and problem solvers in a wide variety of areas including stamping, forging, extruding, heat-treating, casting, testing, design, etc.. Examples include the following:
- Fine wire drawing [for wire less than 0.050” (1.27 mm) diameter]
- Thin foil rolling [for strip less than 0.0015” (0.04 mm) thick]
- Thin wall tube redrawing [for tube less than 0.75” (19.05 mm) diameter]
- Multigauge strip contouring
- Prototype and production blanking and forming
- Photochemical machining
- Fixture age hardening
- Joining
- Inlay cladding
- Solder striping
- Electron beam welding
- Zone annealing
- Electroplating
- Machining
Design Assistance & Review
We will review your designs in order to verify the suitability of the design and material for the application and help identify potential problems before a single part or prototype is made. We have extensive experience performing finite element analysis (FEA) on customer designs. If a problem is found, we will offer you advice on how to improve the performance. We can provide you with the following:
- Linear & Nonlinear Stress Analysis (contact, maximum stress, contact force, permanent set, etc.)
- Thermal Analysis (transient and steady state)
- Dynamic Analysis (mode shapes, natural frequencies, etc.)
- Material Property Data (stress relaxation, fatigue, etc.)
- FEA Input Data (stress-strain curves, thermal properties, etc.)
You also may wish to rely on our expertise in FEA if you need a "sanity check" on your own design and analysis work. All that we require to complete an analysis is an electronic model or dimensioned drawing of the part and a description of the loads and boundary conditions.
Infrared (IR) Camera
For plastic molding applications, we can demonstrate at your facility the use of an infrared camera to shoot images of the parts coming out of the mold. We will review the data with you to determine hot spots that can be eliminated by the use of Materion Brush Performance Alloys’ MoldMAX® materials. A follow-up image will show the improvements in mold cooling after MoldMAX® is inserted in the mold, with corresponding benefits of reduced cycle time and decreased part warpage.
Failure Analysis and Research Capabilities
Our Alloy Technology laboratory in Elmore, Ohio is well equipped with analysis tools to provide material evaluations and detailed failure analysis. We have the technology available to help identify our customer’s problems and recommend possible solutions. Our facilities include equipment capable of mechanical, physical and chemical testing:
- Metallography
- SEM (JEOL 6300) w/ EDS
- Mechanical Testing (tensile testing, hardness, fatigue, stress relaxation, formability, etc.)
- Physical Testing (surface roughness, electrical conductivity, die penetrant inspection, etc.)
- Heat Treating
- Chemical Composition
Material Samples
Often, we will be able to provide you with small sample quantities of material for prototypes or experimental purposes.
Technical Seminars Built to Suit
Materion Brush Performance Alloys can design a seminar to suit your requirements in areas of metallurgy, contact design, plastic molding, plating and surface finishing, bearing design and many others. You choose the topics based on your particular needs. We will customize the content to zero in on the precise aspects that pertain to your operation. We offer the expertise you require and the ability to put it to work in your environment
Technical Literature
We continuously update and publish our technical literature in order to aid our customers in understanding our material and its processing. This includes:
- Technical Briefs
- Technical Tidbits Newsletter
- Product Brochures and Data Sheets
- Case Studies and Application Reports
Design Tools
We have created a number of tools to assist you in your designs. These tools include but are not limited to the following:
- Connector Engineering Design Guide
- Online Bushing & Bearing Fit and Tolerancing Guide
- Cantilever Beam Analysis Spreadsheets
- Temperature Rise Calculation Spreadsheets
Technical Projects
We will work with customers to design and carry out technical or research projects on our materials.
Safe Handling Information
Backed by Materion Brush Performance Alloys’ product stewardship organization, we can provide you with the latest information on how to work safely with our materials
Contact Materion Brush Performance Alloys
To learn more about our Customer Technical Service capabilities, Contact Us
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