LEVERAGING OUR STRENGTHS IN COMMERCIAL AEROSPACE & INDUSTRIAL COMPONENTS

The high strength and superior wear resistance of ToughMet® alloys help make today’s new commercial airliners more fuel efficient and less costly to operate.  

Materion has supplied copper beryllium alloys to the aerospace industry for decades. But over the past ten years, our commercial aerospace sales have taken off following the introduction of ToughMet®, our premium copper-nickel-tin alloy. Original equipment makers and operators count on ToughMet for its extraordinary strength, lubricity and wear resistance even under extreme load conditions. Today we are on almost every commercial aircraft in production, including significant content on the Boeing 787 and 747-800, Airbus A380 and the newly designed A350 XWB. As aircraft production runs increase, ToughMet will serve an even larger role. Beyond aerospace, ToughMet has won converts in many demanding industrial applications. We look to further penetrate these markets with a new line of lower-cost, thin-walled wrapped bearings developed in collaboration with Bowman International Ltd., a U.K. company. The BowMet® product line outperforms bearings made of steel, bronze or other materials at an easily justifiable price premium. 

Mines Shovel up Savings with ToughMet® 

L&H Industrial, a world leader in rebuilding heavy mining equipment, is a strong proponent of ToughMet. The alloy’s superior wear resistance in load roller bushings and other applications translates into lower maintenance costs and valuable added uptime for its customers. In surface mining shovels, the track assembly load roller bushings may need to support up to 3 million pounds of load. The company has shown that bushings made from ToughMet are able to last more than 30,000 hours – two to three times longer than the standard manganese bronze bushings. L&H is so confident in ToughMet that its warranty on the load roller bushings is 60 to 100% longer than its competitors offer. In a business where a shovel idled for a 36-to 48-hour maintenance cycle can cost $1 million or more in lost production, doubling the interval between cycles generates huge savings for mining operators. 

Photo courtesy of L&H Industrial