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Howmet is an interesting company. My dad worked for them his entire life (it was called MISCO, then Howmet bought them, then Alcoa). He worked specifically in t
by a2tech 2y ago
Howmet is an interesting company. My dad worked for them his entire life (it was called MISCO, then Howmet bought them, then Alcoa). He worked specifically in titanium injection molding--they would heat titanium until it was liquid and then force it under pressure into intricate molds they made onsite.
Most of the time they made turbine blades for jet engines, but if it was slow they would make golf club heads for PING and companies like that. In all the years he worked there, the golf club heads were the only tangible product of his work that I saw because everything else was tightly controlled in the facility.
- chasil 2y agoThe blades were actually perfect crystals, with either all the grain boundaries aligned, or no grain boundaries. This lets them run at higher temperatures without melting, increasing efficiency. Pratt & Whitney appears to have developed most of the technology. https://www.americanscientist.org/article/each-blade-a-single-crystal https://www.americanscientist.org/article/each-blade-a-singl...
- dekhn 2y agoOh, so that's what they were doing in the facility in my hometown. It was always pretty secretive and now I can see why.