Lockalloy is an
alloy
An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which at least one is a metal. Unlike chemical compounds with metallic bases, an alloy will retain all the properties of a metal in the resulting material, such as electrical conductivity, ductilit ...
that consists of 62%
beryllium
Beryllium is a chemical element with the symbol Be and atomic number 4. It is a steel-gray, strong, lightweight and brittle alkaline earth metal. It is a divalent element that occurs naturally only in combination with other elements to form m ...
and 38%
aluminum
Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It h ...
. It was used as a structural metal in the aerospace industry because of its high specific strength and stiffness.
The alloy was first developed in the 1960s by the
Lockheed Missiles and Space Company. The material was used in the
Lockheed YF12 and
LGM-30 Minuteman
The LGM-30 Minuteman is an American land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in service with the Air Force Global Strike Command. , the LGM-30G Minuteman III version is the only land-based ICBM in service in the United States and re ...
missile systems. In the 1970s production difficulties limited the material to a few specialized uses and by the mid 1970s Lockalloy was no longer commercially available.
In 1990,
Materion Beryllium & Composites re-introduced the material into the commercial marketplace as a powder-sintered composite under the trade name of
AlBeMet.
References
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Beryllium alloys