Metal Foils

Nickel Foil has a number of unique properties, or combinations of properties, that allow them to be used in a variety of specialized applications. For example, the high resistivity (resistance to the flow of electricity) and a heat resistance of nickel-chromium alloys lead to their use as electric resistance heating elements. A new high-performance and cost-effective nickel alloy specifically developed for automotive exhaust system flexible couplings. Potentially useful for exhaust gas recirculation tubes and other fabricated exhaust system components.

Nickel Foil is used for a wide variety of applications, the majority of which involve corrosion resistance and heat resistance. Some of these include Aircraft gas turbines, Steam turbine power plants, Medical applications, Nuclear power systems, Chemical and petrochemical industries. Other properties of interest that expand the markets and applications of nickel and nickel alloys include those to follow: Shape memory characteristics of equiatomic nickel-titanium alloys that allow them to be used as actuators, hydraulic connectors, and eyeglass frames. The high strength at elevated temperature and resistance to stress relaxation that allows wrought nickel beryllium-titanium to be used for demanding electrical/electronic applications. The combination of heat removal (high thermal conductivity) and wear resistance that allows cast nickel-beryllium-carbon alloys to be used for tooling for glass-forming operations.

A number of other applications for Nickel Foil involve the unique physical properties of special-purpose nickel-base or high-nickel alloys. These include low-expansion alloys, Electrical resistance alloys, Soft magnetic alloys, Shape memory alloys. An iron-nickel alloy designed for turbine disc applications at temperatures up to 1200–1400 °F (649–760 °C). Hardened by complex precipitation of intermetallic phases, the alloy combines corrosion resistance with excellent tensile and stress rupture strength. A copper-nickel alloy used mainly for its electrical properties. It has medium-range electrical resistivity and a very low-temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR). The low TCR makes the alloy useful for wire-wound precision resistors having operating temperatures up to 750 °F (400 °C). A reproducible electromotive force against copper makes the alloy suitable for thermocouples and thermocouple compensating leads.

Different Nickel Foil is used in petrochemical, chemical, and thermal processing applications. These alloys provide an exceptional level of high-temperature corrosion-resistance in oxidation, sulfidation, carburization, and nitridation environments. In addition to thermal stability characteristics required to prevent thermal distortion and embrittlement, it exhibits excellent stress-rupture strengths. These characteristics, along with high resistance to carburization and cyclic oxidation, make this alloy the material of choice for many severe applications including ID-finned pyrolysis tubing in high-severity ethylene furnaces.

Resistance heating Nickel Foil is used in many varied applications—from small household appliances to large industrial process heating systems and furnaces. In appliances or industrial processes, the heating elements are usually either open helical coils of resistance wire mounted with ceramic bushings in a suitable metal frame or enclosed metal-sheathed elements consisting of a smaller-diameter helical coil of resistance wire electrically insulated from the metal sheath by compacted refractory insulation. In industrial furnaces, elements often must operate continuously at temperatures as high as 1300 °C (2350 °F) for furnaces used in metal-treating industries, 1700 °C (3100 °F) for kilns used for firing ceramics, and occasionally 2000 °C (3600 °F) or higher for special applications.