695. Beryllium Technology and Application
$20.00
SAWE Members get a $200 store credit each year.*
*Store credit coupon available at checkout, click the button in your shopping cart to apply the coupon.
Not applicable to SAWE textbooks and current conference technical papers.
Paper
Abstract
Of all the known available metallic structural materials, beryllium must surely qualify as being closest to the weight engineer’s dream. In this material we see a range of properties which appear to be a composite of some of the most desirable mechanical and physical properties of the conventional materials. Its density is the same as magnesium, the lightest of the structural materials, In sheet and forging forms, the material has tensile strengths similar to the highest strength aluminum alloys. It can be used effectively into the 1000 degree F temperature zone, with a specific strength falloff rate similar to the high grade titanium alloys.
Perhaps the most outstanding characteristic of beryllium is the stiffness modulus which, at 50 percent greater than the steel alloys, results in a specific stiffness more than six times greater than any of the other metallic structural materials.
In addition, beryllium has physical properties which are of considerable interest to engineers, such as high thermal conductivity, high specific heat, and virtual transparency to X-rays. It is the intent of this paper to present the potential advantages of beryllium as a material from the point of view of application to light weight structures and to acquaint the reader with the current state-of-the-art in working with this material.
