When we have a job to do in a harsh work environment, stress builds quickly and it affects our efficiency. The coupling in your design is no different. Certain operating condition require specific coupling construction materials. Here, Randy Kingsbury, mechanical engineer and vice president of sales and marketing at Helical Products Company, explains some common issues with tough conditions and the materials needed to combat them.
“This is a fairly common situation where trying to stay with a standard part can mean compromises. Certainly thermal variances can be an issue. A good example that we run into is high temperature. We use 17-4 steel, which is a great, high-strength material. In certain applications, somebody may need something that has even better high-temperature capacity and that would be an Inconel material. With that, rather than trying to use the 17-4 and get that to work, we can look at other alternative materials that are better.
Application examples would be downhole drilling and medical tools. Both involve highly corrosive environments. For drilling, we might look into an MP35N cobalt alloy option, which is very corrosion resistant. For medical tools and components that have been implanted in the body, custom choices are often needed. We might choose aluminum or 303, which is actually not a very high-strength material. When you get into things related to the body, often, MP35N and even titanium is used. Weight is especially important in the aviation or space industry. Frequently, aluminum doesn’t have the strength. Titanium is frequently an excellent solution.”
Helical
heli-cal.com