Beryllium Machining And Its Applications In Aerospace And Other Industries

Beryllium machining is a very tight tolerance process

. Berylliumis a unique metal in terms of its physical characteristics; it is lighter than aluminum but has more than 5 times the stiffness of steel, has good thermal properties and is non-magnetic. These characteristics allow beryllium to be machined accurately, and make it a material of choice for several optical and aerospace applications.

Most deposits of beryllium ore are in the form of beryl or bertrandite, emerald is a form of beryl. Most beryllium deposits are found in Argentina, Brazil, India, Madagascar, Russia and the United States.

Beryllium Machining can be difficult

The same characteristics, that makes beryllium a perfect material for certain applications can make beryllium machining difficult. In addition pure beryllium is expensive, and airborne beryllium dust can be toxic so strict safety procedures are required.

Since Beryllium is not ductile it will tend to fracture if not machined properly. Beryllium machine tools also tend to have a short life since Beryllium is quite abrasive, even though it a relatively soft. Stringent process controls are required with beryllium.

Grinding is not generally used to remove large amounts of beryllium, and usually is reserved for close-tolerance work and to produce fine surface finishes. Cutting beryllium has a tendency to cause surface micro cracks, also known as twining, proper machining procedures are required to avoid this. Additionally, the use of stress relief processes such as chemical etching or heat treatment are often required,

Proper machining processes include techniques such as progressively reducing the depths of cuts by 50% compared to previous cuts and the use of soft jawed chucks with large contacts areas to reduce bending and vibration.

Beryllium applications

The most important application for beryllium is in radiation windows on X-ray tubes, because of its low atomic number and very low absorption for X-rays. In this application the beryllium must be very pure and clean to avoid creating X-ray image artifacts.

Thin beryllium foils are used as radiation windows for X-ray detectors, and the extremely low absorption minimizes the heating effects caused by high intensity, low energy X-rays typical of synchrotron radiation.

Because of it is stiff, light weight and stable over a wide temperature range, beryllium metal is used for lightweight structural components in the defense and aerospace industries in high-speed aircraft, missiles, space vehicles and communication satellites. Beryllium is used in rocket engine nozzles. Its elastic rigidity allows it to be used in gyroscope inertial guidance systems and in support structures for optical systems

Since Beryllium is non-magnetic, certain tools are fabricated from it. Typically, those used near MRI machines and by bomb disposal squads!

Beryllium alloys are high conductively both electrically and thermally, are strong, hard, non-magnetic and corrosion resistant.

Beryllium mirrors are used in satellites and military fire control systems, since beryllium contracts and deforms less than glass. The Spitzer space telescope used Beryllium mirrors and the upcoming Webb telescope will also use Beryllium mirrors.

Low weight and high rigidity of beryllium make it useful as a material for high-frequency speaker drivers. Because beryllium is expensive (many times more than titanium), hard to shape due to its brittleness, and toxic if mishandled, beryllium tweeters are limited to high-end home, pro audio and public address applications.

Beryllium is a p-type dopant in III-V compound semiconductors. It is widely used in materials such as GaAs, AlGaAs, InGaAs and InAlAsgrown by molecular beam epitaxy. Cross-rolled beryllium sheet is an excellent structural support for printed circuit boards in surface-mount technology.

In critical electronic applications, beryllium is both a structural support and heat sink. The application also requires a coefficient of thermal expansion that is well matched to the alumina and polyimide-glass substrates.

Nucleads capabilities

Nuclead can program and machine all your beryllium machining needs to within .000050". Our Quality Control department has CMM capabilities to QC your products accurately. All equipment is calibrated to NIST standards. Our programming department has the latest CAD-CAM Auto Assist software available today. Solid models can be e-mailed and posted for complex 3D machining.

We provide ultra-precision machining for aerospace, security, guidance systems, Department of Defense and US government (CCR Registered) clients, and radar, x-ray, satellite, and medical applications.

by: Steve Madonna

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