Precipitation-hardening alloys

Designers of stainless steel and nickel alloy products are routinely faced with making tradeoffs between the properties needed for manufacturing and those required for its end use. When such compromises begin to adversely impact cost or performance, precipitation hardening (PH) alloys may offer a solution. Despite their more complex metallurgy, PH alloys are not necessarily more costly than many nonage-hardenable alloys. In fact, performance may be substantially higher than such alloys, without a cost penalty. Although corrosion resistance is decreased (or possibly increased) during the aging cycle, it is only by a slight amount. This article takes a closer look at PH stainless steel and nickel alloys, and provides several examples of applications.