Word: columbium
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Until recently, one of the scarcest and hardest-sought metals was columbium. Although not extraordinarily tough in itself, it mixes with steel, nickel and other metals to make alloys that can withstand the tremendous jet heat. The U.S. must depend on Africa, however, for 95% of its limited supply. Accordingly, a big hunt was started for substitutes and yielded the most promising wonder metal of all-titanium...
...Government subsidized experimental pilot plants to process small batches of titanium into sheets, rods, etc. and commercial production of titanium was started by Du Pont and Titanium Metals Corp. But the Air Force wanted titanium desperately not only in its pure state but as an ideal substitute for columbium as a hardening agent in alloys. It pressed for a huge program to boost production to 22,000 tons by 1955 (current production: 3,400 tons a year). A long fight ensued. Some defense officials argued that with sheet titanium costing as much as $20 a lb., such a program, with...
Violent Reaction. U.S. military production desperately needs titanium as a substitute for columbium, a rare metal which makes steel fit to stand the 1,600º hellfire inside a jet-engine combustion chamber. Almost all the world's supply of columbium ore comes from primitive mines in Nigeria; the U.S. was able to get only 1,727,000 Ibs. last year. Since world production of columbium cannot be stepped up for another three years, the U.S. has turned to titanium. Luckily, it is one of the most abundant minerals in the earth's crust, and the U.S. abounds...
...gain in engine production will come then. But the crucial test is whether, by the time these plants come into production, suitable substitutes can be developed for the critical metals now desperately short. If they cannot, the engine program will fail because there is not enough nickel, columbium, etc. in sight now to build the engines scheduled...
Pratt & Whitney has already made big gains in solving the problem.lt has worked out high-alloy mixes which eliminate the use of columbium completely in the J-48. It has also reduced the use of other critical metals to a mere fraction of a pound per engine. Others have developed substitutes which permit existing supplies of the critical metals to be stretched 15 times farther...