Our technologies
We melt, cast, forge, extrude, roll and draw copper and nickel alloys in our own plants, then heat treat and machine them. Each step controls and certifies the properties, dimensions and documentation it hands to the next. More than 80 % of the raw metal entering the route comes from recycled sources, internal or external, without intermediary refining.
The route
Melting and casting are controlled and automated, with metallurgical cleanliness as the first requirement. The furnaces take internal and customer scrap as well as external scrap. Suippes is our melting site for heavy wrought sections. Christchurch is our melting site for as-cast semi-products, continuous and centrifugal.
Forging brings an alloy to heavy sections and to blanks close to the shape of the final part. Suippes forges the heavy sections.
Extrusion produces bars, hollow bars and profiles. M Lego makes premium bars and profiles, and MEA precision profiles.
Hot rolling gives flat products the desired solution-annealed microstructure, then cold rolling and drawing bring strips and wires to their final gauge. Bornel makes strips, wires and precision products, and Dongguan draws wires.
Heat treatment is used at several steps of the process, then sets the final properties of an alloy, from the solution-annealed state to the hardened tempers. Heat treatment at Suippes is Nadcap accredited.
Stamping, cold heading and machining turn semi-finished products into blanks and finished parts, from the supplier that melted the alloy. Machining capacity is in place in Rydzyna, Warwick and Dongguan, close to the markets those service centres supply. Christchurch produces high value added components.
Materials
Designations and forms as in our catalogue. Not all alloys exist in all forms, tempers and regions.
| Brand | Designation | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Hardiall® | CuNi15Sn8 | Copper-nickel-tin bearing alloy, hardened by heat treatment (spinodal), with no beryllium or lead. Bars and tubes for bearing surfaces under high load. |
| Niclafor® 1000 | CuNi9Sn6 | The copper-nickel-tin chemistry in rods, strips and wires, for connectors, relays, springs and bushings. |
| Hardibron® | CuNi14Al3Fe1 | Non-magnetic copper-nickel-aluminium alloy for shafts, bearing bushes, valves and pumps in seawater and oil and gas systems. |
| Navinic | CuNi10Fe1Mn, CuNi30Mn1Fe | Our 90/10 and 70/30 cupronickels for seawater circuits, weldable and ductile. |
| ARCAP® | No metallurgical designation | Nickel-silver grades AP1, AP1C and AP1D for electronics and luxury parts, and AP4, a non-magnetic grade that keeps its properties at cryogenic temperatures. |
| Niclal® | No metallurgical designation | Copper-manganese resistance alloys in strip and wire for shunts and resistance windings, and Niclal® 400, a nickel-copper strip for corrosive environments. |
| Siclanic® S | CuNi2Si | Copper-nickel-silicon strip, stamped, bent, soldered or welded in the soft state, then hardened by heat treatment. |
| Cuprofor® | CuCoP | Copper-cobalt-phosphorus strip for stamped and formed parts that must conduct, at 85 % IACS. |
| UC500 | CuCrZr | Copper-chromium-zirconium grade reaching 92 % IACS electrical conductivity, drawn into rods and wires for high-strength cabling. |
| EnviB® | No metallurgical designation | Lead-free brasses for parts that have been turned from leaded grades until now: EnviB® 1 and 10 (CuZn40), EnviB® 58 and 158 (CuZn42), in rods and wires. |
| ZeST® | No metallurgical designation | Zero-lead Special Turning: lead-free grades for turned parts, ARCAP ZeST® (CuNi25Zn14.5), BZ4 ZeST® (CuSn4Zn4), C97 ZeST® (CuNi1P) and Declafor 1015 (CuNi7.5Sn5Te), in wires and small rods. |
Innovation
Digital twins of products and processes, simulation and machine learning, so that a route is optimised before it runs.
Alloys without lead or beryllium. The EnviB® and ZeST® lead-free ranges and the beryllium-free Hardiall® come from this work.
Circular grades qualified and in service, in a group where more than 80 % of raw metal already comes from recycled sources.
New uses for the alloys in the portfolio, developed with customers. Two alloys were co-developed with customers in China in the last five years.
Talk to us
Our metallurgists select or develop the alloy and temper around your application, and follow the part from the first drawing to qualification. We fund more than 3 M€ of research and development every year from our own resources, and work with European centres of scientific expertise.
