Aluminum Alloy Is Harder, Stronger.What's said to be the hardest, strongest, and longest lasting aluminum alloy for plastics injection molds has just been introduced by Alcoa Engineered Products, Lafayette, Ind. Alcoa sources say this product enables injection molders to think of aluminum for more than just prototype molds. One molder mold·er v. mold·ered, mold·er·ing, mold·ers v.intr. To crumble to dust; disintegrate. v.tr. To cause to crumble. See Synonyms at decay. of polystyrene polystyrene (pŏl'ēstī`rēn), widely used plastic; it is a polymer of styrene. Polystyrene is a colorless, transparent thermoplastic that softens slightly above 100°C; (212°F;) and becomes a viscous liquid at around 185°C; toys reportedly has produced 5 million parts with Alcoa's new QE-7 material and has observed no wear so far. QE-7 alloy reportedly exceeds the strength and hardness of other aluminum alloys, even Alcoa's established QC-7 material. QE-7 boasts hardness of 19 Rc, whereas the next hardest aluminum is 17 Rc. Hardness of QE-7 can be boosted with special coatings to 50 or 93 Rc. Even if QE-7 molds don't last as long as steel, they can save money, Alcoa claims. That's because QE-7 has 4.5 times the thermal conductivity thermal conductivity A measure of the ability of a material to transfer heat. Given two surfaces on either side of the material with a temperature difference between them, the thermal conductivity is the heat energy transferred per unit time and per unit of P20 steel, which means it can shorten (audio, compression) Shorten - A form of lossless audio compression. cooling times (Law) such a lapse of time as ought, taking all the circumstances of the case in view, to produce a subsiding of passion previously provoked. - Wharton. See also: Cooling by 25 to 35%. And aluminum's easy machinability means that molds can be made much faster and less expensively. |
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