Copper

Copper Nickel Alloys

There are more than 400 different alloys available that are based upon copper as the base metal, sometimes incorrectly captioned as bronzes (which are copper-tin alloys) and brasses (copper-zinc alloys). The creation of the Langley Alloys Ltd business can be traced back to the special copper alloys division of High Duty Alloys Limited and has ultimately resulted in a number of unique high-performance alloys. Copper has the best electrical and thermal conductivity of any commercial metal, but careful alloying creates a wider range of competitive properties.

The Hiduron^® alloys are cupronickels, so predominantly consist of copper-nickel, meaning that they have excellent resistance to corrosion in seawater, marine and industrial applications. They are strengthened by smaller additions of aluminium and iron, achieving significantly higher strengths than other copper alloys which also improves their wear resistance and anti-galling properties, making them widely used in naval and oil & gas applications. By replacing some of the aluminium and iron additions with manganese, Hiduron 191 has a lower proof stress, but has much greater ductility and toughness. The Hiduron products are the only high-strength copper alloys with a proven record of resistance to hydrogen embrittlement.

Hidurel^® 5  is a copper-nickel-silicon alloy. As the alloy additions are relatively modest compared with alternatives, it retains high conductivity, but still achieves much greater levels of strength than commonly available metals such as nickel-aluminium bronze (NAB) and 70/30 copper-nickel. Interesting features include its extremely low magnetic permeability and strong bearing properties making it a strong candidate for many diverse marine applications.