NITINOL FACTS

As an alloy of nickel and titanium, Nitinol has unique properties of shape memory and superelasticity. With the innovation in the production and processing of Nitinol, Nitinol made medical equipment can be expanded significantly in various therapeutic fields.

For medical applications (Nitinol # 1, Nitinol # 2, Nitinol # 4 and Nitinol # 8) and Nitinol # 5, Nitinol # 6 and Nitinol # 9, Fort Wayne Metals are suitable for a variety of other uses. All grades of Nitinol can be heat treated as cold working (CW) conditions or as superelastic (SE) wire extending straight. Fort Wayne Metals has developed a new technology that provides unique mechanical properties called Nitinol called Dynamic Plateau Strength (DPS). This process is also possible. If you need a particularly smooth surface, we recommend using SilkTM Nitinol Wire. This achieves a surface texture of 3 μin RMS without mechanical or electrolytic polishing.

Heat treatment nitinol is subtle and important. Fine tuning the transition temperature is a knowledge intensive process. The aging time and temperature control the precipitation of various nickel-rich phases to control the nickel content in the NiTi lattice. The aging increases the transition temperature by exhausting the nickel matrix. A combination of heat treatment and cold working is important to control the properties of Nitinol products. Fatigue failure of Nitinol made equipment is subject to discussion. It is an optimum material for applications requiring great flexibility and motion (eg peripheral stents, heart valves, smart thermo-mechanical actuators, and electromechanical microactuators) and therefore must be larger than other metals. Fatigue strain