As a new and independent corporation, Pittsburgh Materials Technology, Inc. (PMTI) had its start in mid-1993. Sales the first year were $100,000. Some eleven years later in 2004, sales had increased more than 18 fold.

From Day 1, PMTI has provided an aerospace customer an electrode material to be incorporated into arc jets used to maneuver communication satellites in geosynchronous earth orbit. According to this customer, PMTI is the only company with the integrated capability to make this alloy.

Work done for the defense community has grown each year. As refractory materials are considered for application, PMTI's experience base becomes more and more relevant. It would be impossible to replicate the experience base of our 1500 VAR melts and 800 high strain rate extrusions/forgings.

We have pushed our mechanical equipment capability forward in recent years. For one customer, PMTI took over the process of qualifying O-ring material used in critical applications.

For another customer, PMTI performed a variety of development and testing tasks to produce a new alloy, Oxide-Dispersion Strengthened (ODS) molybdenum. The result of these efforts has led to a successful new product for a commercial customer. The application is high temperature furnace components such as vacuum furnace sintering boats and furnace elements, where high temperature strength and dimensional stability must be maintained for prolonged periods.

In its ten years of existence, PMTI has been able to add and update its capabilities. Laser micrometers, a laser engraving system, a foil mill, an impact tester and several high temperature furnaces are among the enhancements that have been added to better serve our customers' needs.

PMTI has succeeded by building upon the capabilities that began many years earlier as a Division of Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Much of the experience base that PMTI offers in the marketplace today has flowed from the Westinghouse successes. A recitation of those successes would fill a book. Some of the more notable are:

• A large number of advanced refractory metal alloys were developed by the Westinghouse organization that became PMTI. These included niobium-base (B-1, B-66, B-77, B-88, B-99 and C-1), tantalum-base (T-111, T-222 and ASTAR 811C, 1211C and 1511C) and vanadium-base (VANSTAR-7, 8 and 9) compositions. PMTI is still melting, processing and testing many of these alloys today.



• An implantable artificial human heart was developed, powered by a tiny Stirling cycle engine coupled to a plutonium heat source. An extremely efficient methodology was developed for a vacuum foil thermal material to insulate the heat source from the surrounding body tissue. This technology remains in use today, where volume constraints and steep temperature gradients justify the expense of this unique approach.



• Other memorable projects include the development of liquid alkali metal heat pipes for use with Co-60 radioisotope heat sources and applications of W-HfC and WRe-HfC, the strongest high temperature alloys ever developed. Recently, PMTI has proposed an application of the former and we are producing the latter for potential use as a friction stir welding tool.