90%
The strength of
6061-T6 aluminum
50%
The weight of
6061-T6 aluminum
$50 Million
Investment In
Research / Development / Testing
Highly Characterized
Key Advantages of HX5:
- 90% as strong as 6061-T6 aluminum
- Performs well in extreme high and low temperatures
- Low shrinkage and excellent dimensional stability (0.5% vs 2.0%)
- Extremely resistant to solvents, fuels, lubricants and chemicals including skydrol and DEET
- Corrosion resistant unlike other metals
- Meets flame, smoke, toxicity (FST) requirements for commercial aerospace and defense applications
- Resistant to twisting, warping, and fatigue of molded structures in high thermal gradient environments
- Passed accelerated lifetime thermal cycling and high-temperature thermal stability
- Weight reduction with HX5 components results allows vehicles to go further and faster
- Reduces lead times
- Part count reduction
- Simplified supply chain
- Reduces sustainment cost
- Reduces production and labor costs
- Drop-in material for injection molding operations, extrusion, compression molding and thermoforming
- Compatible with metallic insert molding operations for multifunction products
- Delivery time reduced from weeks to days with injection molding
- No performance degradation at elevated loads
- Material flows exceptionally, allowing it to fill fine detail features without distortion
- Machines like aluminum without chipping, cracking, galling or gumming
- Drills and threads like metal
- Unlike most solvent resistant materials, can be coated, primed, plated and adhesively bonded
- Can be metallized to meet EMI shielding requirements
Complex Designs
Easily Coatable
Machines Like Metal
Properties of HX5:
The extreme mechanical performance of HX5 was characterized by a broad range of standard ASTM tests important to aerospace, defense and space design engineers with a goal to replace 6061-T6 aluminum with a material of the same strength, yet half the weight.
HX5 vs. Thermoplastics
HX5 also enables robust composite structures with best-in-class properties compared to other industry standard thermoplastics.
To learn more about the mechanical properties of HX5, download our technical data sheet.
HX5 thermal properties are important for stable structural designs in elevated temperatures. HX5 boasts a high Heat Deflection Temp (HDT) that is five times less than typical aerospace-grade aluminum, and a low Thermal Conductivity. The combination of these properties is ideally suited to greatly reduce twisting, warping, and fatigue of molded structures in high thermal gradient environments.
To learn more about the thermal properties of HX5, download our technical data sheet.
To learn more about the environmental stability of HX5, download our technical data sheet.
Prototyping Options
Billet Manufacturing
Alpine Advanced Materials can provide turnkey prototypes of your design in a wide variety of metallic and non-metallic materials, including HX5.
If you would like to machine your own prototypes, we have HX5 billets available for purchase.
Standard sizes include:
- 1/2” x 4”
- 1-3/4” x 3”
- 2″ diameter cylinder
Standard sizes are available in lengths of 6″ increments. Many other sizes available upon request.
Alpine Advanced Materials offers a turnkey solution for manufacturing purpose-designed parts using our HX5 composite material. HX5 components can be readily manufactured through injection molding or extrusion and can be mass-produced in weeks versus the months typically seen for machined metal parts.