I worked with various grades of superalloys during stints at gas turbine, gasoline, natural gas, and diesel engine companies. I got to know some of the fundamentals of superalloys and what their various grades were used for. Inco 718 - turbine wheels in gas turbines. This grade is as important to the gas turbine industry as cast iron is to the diesel engine industry. A workhose alloy used for a lot of different things. I worked on a high-tech diesel engine at one time that ran so hot we had to EDM the cylinders heads out of solid blocks of 718. Inco X-750 and 751 are commonly used as exhaust valve heads in piston engines (gasoline, natural gas, and diesel.) The 600-series are not for very high temperature use where strength is required, but for corrosion resistance in aggressive environments. While taking time off from being an engineer, I was a commercial driver and made runs to Sudbury, Ontario. This is where the International Nickel mine was located. Given the reliance of NATO countries on nickel-based alloys to make high performance jet engines during the Cold War, I appreciated the history of the region. On the way to Sudbury, you can see dark outcroppings of rock jutting through the ground, left by an ancient nickel-bearing meteor that formed the huge nickel deposit.
Used to buy heating elements made from Inconel for ceramic kilns that fired at 1300°C. They were in service much longer than standard elements which saved on down time and hence saved money in spite of the added cost. Thanks for the video.
I was jet engine test cell operator. I was always in awe how the metal withstood white hot conditions for hours. We performed a 36 hour endurance test at military power and it performed like a champ. At night you could see the turbines glowing red while the casing was white hot that you could see through it. Amazing metal.
The wheels on the Lunar Rover the astronauts used on the moon, were all driven by harmonic drives made of Inconel 718. I know because I did all the rough machining on every one of them.
I was a welder in maintenance for an aerospace fastener co. We had heat treat furnaces for Titanium fasteners. 600 Inco. They were called TMQ's. The basket would go inside the retort/argon gas and heat to 1700 deg.F. 3/8" plate fabrication plus handle rod 1" dia to turn basket by hand. Then after soak they would under argon atmos. pull the basket out of the retort and turn over the basket to dump the parts in water. So, these basket cycled between red hot and room temp, every 45 min. 24 hours/day 5 days a week. They would fail after a few years and boy talk about scale on the baskets. Even zirconium grinding disc would not touch the scale to remove it to do weld repair. I used a carbon arc gouging electrode to make a bevel for the weld repair and remove the scale.
I study micro-machining of Inconel. Nickel is excellent because it does not change phase even near its melting point. The austenitic phase is soft, and adding niobium creates a hard metastable phase, it's fantastic!
I have seen a 6ft square box of 1" thick Inconel twisted like a soda can. This box was used at a hazardous waste incineration facility, Unit 1 of 4, to hold quench water. After the waste was burned, the ashes were pushed into this quench water. The machine operator waited too long to clean the opening to this quench tank and a bridge formed over it. When the bridge formed over it, a pocket of Hydrogen was formed in between the bottom of the bridge and the surface of the water. When trying to clear the bridge with a 20ft long jack hammer bit, the bridge broke loose and exposed the Hydrogen to the 2500-degree temperature of the kiln. This resulted in an explosion that sent the operator about 40ft to the roof of another building and mangled everything around the kiln. Come to find out, someone had locked the Natural gas Valve in the ON position, and it could not be turned off in this emergency. The Inconel box was toast. There were several such explosions while I worked there, but never while I was there. I worked a 3 on/3 off 12hr shift and It was nothing to walk in on an emergency like this. And people want to build cars that run on Hydrogen. Oh hell no.
Back on Dec. 8 1980, when I was driving home from work, Dorval Quebec, John Lennon was shot...Why am I telling this story? Well I was working in a small fab shop at the time and yes I was welding Inconel! Matter of fact after burning a rod, I had to return the stub, because it was so bloody expensive! But man, welded like butter on a piece of hot toast. I'll never forget the times and experience. Mater of fact I was heading out after my afternoon shift to the "Maples In" on lake shore Blvd.for a few pints and watch Luba do her thing! all 18 years of her! What a voiced! Ah memories and this brought them back. Unfortunately, t rumor has it, the Hells Angles burnt it to the ground! That was a great bar!!!! An other material I was able/required to weld was, Hastelloy... This is a great channel! I don't miss any if not very few video's. You do great work and research, you know your stuff man! As a retired engineer, I always look forward to these.👍
The X-15, in addition to Titanium, needed to have a new leading edge materiel on the wings. A new variant of Inconel, called Inconel X, was formulated. This allowed the wing edges to withstand the severe heat eorson at high Mach numbers, allowing the X-15 to reach a record Mach 6.67, a record speed for a rocket powered plane.
Simple Things? I will make it more complicated. There are several different kinds of Inconel with different compositions. Inconel 600, 601, 625 and 718. Two of the major ones are Inconel 718 used in the aerospace industry for high strength, heat and creep resistance. Inconel 625 is used in the oil and gas industries or in subsea equipment for corrosion resistance.
inco was actually a canadian company founded in 1902, with the financial backing of American banker J. P. Morgan and Charles Schwab of Carnegie Steel, the Canadian Copper Company and Orford merged to create the International Nickel Company, later renamed Inco.they mined the sudbury area where an ancient meteorite impact brought huge quantities of metals. The company was restructured in 1928, when the Canadian subsidiary became the parent company and is now owned by VALE of brasil.
I worked for a major sterilizer manufacturer for a number of years. Inconel is also used to make autoclaves (steam sterilizers). It's a double-wall chamber that gets up around 300F and about 32 PSI (It'll handle WAY more than that, but these things are regulated to about 36-38 MAX PSI, depending on its size, the safety valve will pop at 40, 50, or 100 psi.). The target temperature is 273F (with good steam, that's usually about 31 PSI) and it is held for either a few minutes, or up to 45-50 minutes or longer, depends on what the customer needs. They also reach "perfect" vacuum, 30 in/Hg...and they do it QUICK. Inconel will stain with dirty and/or wet steam over time, but man, is that stuff HARD.
I have worked with components manufactured from Inconel during my career in aircraft assembly. Drilling holes in this material certainly called for unusual techniques and endless patience, with the old adage 'Softly, softly, catchee monkey' coming to the fore.... Slip on the trigger of an air powered drill machine and spin the drill bit too quick would result in a glazed and hardened surface on the material, and a knackered drill bit...... Not just blunt, but the cutting edge would be chipped beyond recovery by sharpening .....
It is incredibly tough and preforms well at high temperature. Its somewhat diffcult to machine it because the chips are springy and if you dont use a solid feed with a lower tool cut speed, it will work harden to where it will not cut well and chatter the bit. ❤
Thank you for this video. Some years ago the first time I saw it was glassblower used to use Inconel for glass penetrators in physics lab apparatus. A very useful material. Better living through material science, sort of thing.
Compared to the other comments I’ve seen, I arrived here based on my interest in the Saturn V and the F1 engines that powered the first stage and the need for inconel to protect the engine from the corrosive nature of the fuel used.
First time i ran Inconel on my 15,000lb. Hammer that material shattered snd flew everywhere...i hit it way too hard to fast...but live and learn..its amazing that something so brittle when its hot can be so strong in its usage...i believe we made a gear out of it for airplane engines...from what i can remember..i think inconel was dense and pretty heavy for size we were making...be safe out there!
My understanding is that in a jet engine, the turbine blades which are exposed to heat are hollow and bypass air passes through them to keep them cool in the combustion gas flow.
There was a large facility in Huntington, WV. It was used to make the recoil mechanisms for the 16 inch battleship guns in WWII also. My father-in-law worked on them early in the war.
If you ever have the chance to machine inconel on a lathe you'll love it get out your ear plugs and muffs ! The noise it makes as the material is being torn off of a part spinning at a low RPM is crazy .
Alclad is interesting. Allows tailored core alloys that are subject to coroission to be protected by a thin outer layer of pure aluminum for coroission resistance.
Curious dummy question here, the alloy is made from many metals, with different melting point...is after they mixed together, their melting point change?
Did alot of inconel machining in my 40 years in a machine shop. Some K monel also, but not as bad. Inconel is used often in the oil & gas industry for parts they may be subjected to sour gas in the well.
i saw a circuit car ,2nd gen Nissan N14 with a non turbo SR20 with full Inconel headers and exhaust ,the exhaust hardly radiated any heat into the engine bay as per normal exhaust amazing
Glass has quiet a lengthy history of innovations also. Another subject overlooked is the incredibly complex engineering behind textile machinery and fiber products.
I used to run a Wohlenberg B1000. I bored and turned tons of 718 (literally tons) The only super alloy I had any trouble with was K500 Monel. Stubborn and gummy.
I work in a grind shop and were usually the last ones tom get the parts and we've had a few inconel parts and they usually leave roughing .010-.015 to grind. To, grind that material to spec it usually will take a few work days to get that part to spec. Truly a difficult material for us to work.
hydro-electric power is cool, its immense power abilities are amazing! submarines are cool why are cnc machines so accurate? what moves those cutters so perfectly how jails are made? pretty fascinating subject!
It only makes sense that machining Inconel is hard to machine. I suppose it takes after Stainless steel. The Nickel in stainless steel causes the same affect. If not cutting properly it will build up on the cutter and harden there.
SOUNDS LIKE INCONEL WOULD MAKE GREAT GUN BARRELS, OR EVEN HIGH PERFORMANCE ACTIONS AND BARRELS FOR EXTREME CHAMBER PRESSURES AT EXTRAORDINARY PROJECTILE SPEEDS AND RANGES.AND ESPECIALLY FOR AN ONBOARD DEFENSIVE WEAPON ON A BOAT. IF THEY CAN DRILL THE SEA BED WITH IT, THAT'LL DO...
Machining Inconel causes anxiety
I don’t run much inconel but when I do my day gets a lot longer.
I worked with various grades of superalloys during stints at gas turbine, gasoline, natural gas, and diesel engine companies. I got to know some of the fundamentals of superalloys and what their various grades were used for.
Inco 718 - turbine wheels in gas turbines. This grade is as important to the gas turbine industry as cast iron is to the diesel engine industry. A workhose alloy used for a lot of different things. I worked on a high-tech diesel engine at one time that ran so hot we had to EDM the cylinders heads out of solid blocks of 718.
Inco X-750 and 751 are commonly used as exhaust valve heads in piston engines (gasoline, natural gas, and diesel.)
The 600-series are not for very high temperature use where strength is required, but for corrosion resistance in aggressive environments.
While taking time off from being an engineer, I was a commercial driver and made runs to Sudbury, Ontario. This is where the International Nickel mine was located. Given the reliance of NATO countries on nickel-based alloys to make high performance jet engines during the Cold War, I appreciated the history of the region. On the way to Sudbury, you can see dark outcroppings of rock jutting through the ground, left by an ancient nickel-bearing meteor that formed the huge nickel deposit.
Used to buy heating elements made from Inconel for ceramic kilns that fired at 1300°C. They were in service much longer than standard elements which saved on down time and hence saved money in spite of the added cost. Thanks for the video.
I was jet engine test cell operator.
I was always in awe how the metal withstood white hot conditions for hours.
We performed a 36 hour endurance test at military power and it performed like a champ.
At night you could see the turbines glowing red while the casing was white hot that you could see through it.
Amazing metal.
The wheels on the Lunar Rover the astronauts used on the moon, were all driven by harmonic drives made of Inconel 718. I know because I did all the rough machining on every one of them.
I was a welder in maintenance for an aerospace fastener co. We had heat treat furnaces for Titanium fasteners. 600 Inco. They were called TMQ's. The basket would go inside the retort/argon gas and heat to 1700 deg.F. 3/8" plate fabrication plus handle rod 1" dia to turn basket by hand. Then after soak they would under argon atmos. pull the basket out of the retort and turn over the basket to dump the parts in water. So, these basket cycled between red hot and room temp, every 45 min. 24 hours/day 5 days a week. They would fail after a few years and boy talk about scale on the baskets. Even zirconium grinding disc would not touch the scale to remove it to do weld repair. I used a carbon arc gouging electrode to make a bevel for the weld repair and remove the scale.
I study micro-machining of Inconel. Nickel is excellent because it does not change phase even near its melting point. The austenitic phase is soft, and adding niobium creates a hard metastable phase, it's fantastic!
I have seen a 6ft square box of 1" thick Inconel twisted like a soda can.
This box was used at a hazardous waste incineration facility, Unit 1 of 4, to hold quench water.
After the waste was burned, the ashes were pushed into this quench water.
The machine operator waited too long to clean the opening to this quench tank and a bridge formed over it.
When the bridge formed over it, a pocket of Hydrogen was formed in between the bottom of the bridge and the surface of the water.
When trying to clear the bridge with a 20ft long jack hammer bit, the bridge broke loose and exposed the Hydrogen to the 2500-degree temperature of the kiln.
This resulted in an explosion that sent the operator about 40ft to the roof of another building and mangled everything around the kiln.
Come to find out, someone had locked the Natural gas Valve in the ON position, and it could not be turned off in this emergency.
The Inconel box was toast.
There were several such explosions while I worked there, but never while I was there.
I worked a 3 on/3 off 12hr shift and It was nothing to walk in on an emergency like this.
And people want to build cars that run on Hydrogen.
Oh hell no.
Back on Dec. 8 1980, when I was driving home from work, Dorval Quebec, John Lennon was shot...Why am I telling this story? Well I was working in a small fab shop at the time and yes I was welding Inconel! Matter of fact after burning a rod, I had to return the stub, because it was so bloody expensive! But man, welded like butter on a piece of hot toast. I'll never forget the times and experience. Mater of fact I was heading out after my afternoon shift to the "Maples In" on lake shore Blvd.for a few pints and watch Luba do her thing! all 18 years of her! What a voiced! Ah memories and this brought them back. Unfortunately, t rumor has it, the Hells Angles burnt it to the ground! That was a great bar!!!!
An other material I was able/required to weld was, Hastelloy...
This is a great channel! I don't miss any if not very few video's. You do great work and research, you know your stuff man!
As a retired engineer, I always look forward to these.👍
The X-15, in addition to Titanium, needed to have a new leading edge materiel on the wings. A new variant of Inconel, called Inconel X, was formulated. This allowed the wing edges to withstand the severe heat eorson at high Mach numbers, allowing the X-15 to reach a record Mach 6.67, a record speed for a rocket powered plane.
Simple Things? I will make it more complicated. There are several different kinds of Inconel with different compositions. Inconel 600, 601, 625 and 718. Two of the major ones are Inconel 718 used in the aerospace industry for high strength, heat and creep resistance. Inconel 625 is used in the oil and gas industries or in subsea equipment for corrosion resistance.
inco was actually a canadian company founded in 1902, with the financial backing of American banker J. P. Morgan and Charles Schwab of Carnegie Steel, the Canadian Copper Company and Orford merged to create the International Nickel Company, later renamed Inco.they mined the sudbury area where an ancient meteorite impact brought huge quantities of metals. The company was restructured in 1928, when the Canadian subsidiary became the parent company and is now owned by VALE of brasil.
Do monel next
I worked for a major sterilizer manufacturer for a number of years. Inconel is also used to make autoclaves (steam sterilizers). It's a double-wall chamber that gets up around 300F and about 32 PSI (It'll handle WAY more than that, but these things are regulated to about 36-38 MAX PSI, depending on its size, the safety valve will pop at 40, 50, or 100 psi.). The target temperature is 273F (with good steam, that's usually about 31 PSI) and it is held for either a few minutes, or up to 45-50 minutes or longer, depends on what the customer needs. They also reach "perfect" vacuum, 30 in/Hg...and they do it QUICK. Inconel will stain with dirty and/or wet steam over time, but man, is that stuff HARD.
I have worked with components manufactured from Inconel during my career in aircraft assembly. Drilling holes in this material certainly called for unusual techniques and endless patience, with the old adage 'Softly, softly, catchee monkey' coming to the fore....
Slip on the trigger of an air powered drill machine and spin the drill bit too quick would result in a glazed and hardened surface on the material, and a knackered drill bit...... Not just blunt, but the cutting edge would be chipped beyond recovery by sharpening .....
They are Making super bad ass printed inconel suppressors these days now too
It is incredibly tough and preforms well at high temperature. Its somewhat diffcult to machine it because the chips are springy and if you dont use a solid feed with a lower tool cut speed, it will work harden to where it will not cut well and chatter the bit. ❤
I have been down in the INCO nickel mines in Sudbury Ontario. It's warm down there.
Thank you for this video. Some years ago the first time I saw it was glassblower used to use Inconel for glass penetrators in physics lab apparatus. A very useful material. Better living through material science, sort of thing.
When I worked in a machine shop, I did NDT and did a lot of testing on Inconel parts for nuclear subs.
Drilling out broken inconel bolts in blind holes is a horrendous task.
Compared to the other comments I’ve seen, I arrived here based on my interest in the Saturn V and the F1 engines that powered the first stage and the need for inconel to protect the engine from the corrosive nature of the fuel used.
Never heard of it so thanks for the random pop up.
Never heard of this stuff, but it was fascinating!
First time i ran Inconel on my 15,000lb. Hammer that material shattered snd flew everywhere...i hit it way too hard to fast...but live and learn..its amazing that something so brittle when its hot can be so strong in its usage...i believe we made a gear out of it for airplane engines...from what i can remember..i think inconel was dense and pretty heavy for size we were making...be safe out there!
My understanding is that in a jet engine, the turbine blades which are exposed to heat are hollow and bypass air passes through them to keep them cool in the combustion gas flow.
I have worked with literally tons of this stuff, it's really cool material but it's not fun to grind or weld on.
It's also used extensively in the oil and gas refining industry .
There was a large facility in Huntington, WV. It was used to make the recoil mechanisms for the 16 inch battleship guns in WWII also. My father-in-law worked on them early in the war.
Terrific video. Thank you.
In the 1970s we picked up pieces or Inconel from Seattle Surplus and used them for R/C airplanes and such.
If you ever have the chance to machine inconel on a lathe you'll love it get out your ear plugs and muffs ! The noise it makes as the material is being torn off of a part spinning at a low RPM is crazy .
Alclad is interesting. Allows tailored core alloys that are subject to coroission to be protected by a thin outer layer of pure aluminum for coroission resistance.
How did I know it would be resilient. It is also palpable and resonates.
It is used in heat sensors to detect fires on aircrafts. You can wind and unwind that thing a thousand times and it won't break
Took us a few years to learn speeds feeds and tool, but we got it down!!
I can imagine inconel being used to make the nearly microscopic sized drill bits of dental drills 🤔
Curious dummy question here, the alloy is made from many metals, with different melting point...is after they mixed together, their melting point change?
Very informative!
I used to work in a cable manufacturing plant and we would occasionally make cable with inconel. We used 2 different grades.
Did alot of inconel machining in my 40 years in a machine shop. Some K monel also, but not as bad. Inconel is used often in the oil & gas industry for parts they may be subjected to sour gas in the well.
It would be interesting to learn about the specific metallurgical properties of inconel as compared with other metals.
We sell a lot of Inconel 718 plugs in our control valves used in refining.
When I worked at a chemical plant we had a sulfonation plant and the falling film reactor was made from inconel, we used hastelloy as well in places.
Inconel is the material of choice for exhaust valves in turbocharged race engines.
Inconel was also used in heating elements / terminals in aluminum foundary .
i saw a circuit car ,2nd gen Nissan N14 with a non turbo SR20 with full Inconel headers and exhaust ,the exhaust hardly radiated any heat into the engine bay as per normal exhaust amazing
Ive got my great grand fathers wedding band thats made from inconel, he worked for Martin Aircraft durring ww2.
Glass has quiet a lengthy history of innovations also.
Another subject overlooked is the incredibly complex engineering behind textile machinery and fiber products.
Excellent video!! 👍It would be very interesting to learn about the manufacturing and properties of cermets... ☝🤔
My question is how it's being cut on saw. You need special carbide an coating to mill/turn it. So how you do it with HSS saw???
Inconel was used as heat shields around the F-1 engines of the Saturn V
how about a video on age hardened k-monel.
Great video. Might I suggest a look at margining steel?
Top fuel drag cars is where iv seen inconel used!
Machined inconel monel and hasteloy all can be a machinist nightmare if proper tooling along with coolants and speeds and feeds.
Yeah, But a Centipede has many small feats.
Heard a lot about this alloy.
quite educative, would you do a video on
-shape memory alloy, nitinol
-shear thickening oobleck
I used to run a Wohlenberg B1000. I bored and turned tons of 718 (literally tons) The only super alloy I had any trouble with was K500 Monel. Stubborn and gummy.
I work in a grind shop and were usually the last ones tom get the parts and we've had a few inconel parts and they usually leave roughing .010-.015 to grind. To, grind that material to spec it usually will take a few work days to get that part to spec. Truly a difficult material for us to work.
what about monel?
my first experience with inconnel was when I was a OSM at electric boat. dulled a tool steel prick punch
hydro-electric power is cool, its immense power abilities are amazing!
submarines are cool
why are cnc machines so accurate? what moves those cutters so perfectly
how jails are made? pretty fascinating subject!
How to weld it would be interesting.
Compare the alloy with Titanium?
How about steel for submarine pressure hulls?
Another thing you can thank Canada for
Titanium is a big component in our jet fighters ⚔️🇷🇺⚔️
Add some chromel and you got yourself a TGT harness to measure temp
The uptakes on a DDG 51 are built out of Inconel.
I'd like to have a bicycle frame made from that stuff
Konigsegg has 3d printed exhaust manifolds now
Love the comments section
inconel triggered the thought - invar.
Looks like Play Doo as a kid, it would squeeze-out but rough
Unfortunately war frequently pushes technology to improve
First of all it is ingot cast and then either vacuum arc or elctroslag remelted into a new ingot them forged into billets.
It only makes sense that machining Inconel is hard to machine. I suppose it takes after Stainless steel. The Nickel in stainless steel causes the same affect. If not cutting properly it will build up on the cutter and harden there.
Inconel exhaust valves!
Seems like it would be natural for gun barrels, but those are made from steel. Must be too expensive.
Well they can 3D print with it now so 🤷
Final drive ring seals on cat dozers is inconel
Thanks.
👍👍👍👍
It is an alloy
SOUNDS LIKE INCONEL WOULD MAKE GREAT GUN BARRELS, OR EVEN HIGH PERFORMANCE ACTIONS AND BARRELS FOR EXTREME CHAMBER PRESSURES AT EXTRAORDINARY PROJECTILE SPEEDS AND RANGES.AND ESPECIALLY FOR AN ONBOARD DEFENSIVE WEAPON ON A BOAT. IF THEY CAN DRILL THE SEA BED WITH IT, THAT'LL DO...
Hasteloy 276 much worse to machine and cut.
Stinkconel
👍
Excellent program but don't forget that metallurgic presses was developed first by Chinese visionaries .
First!
1st