Copper Beryllium Vs. MATERIAL Beryllium-Free …

1 MOLDMATERIALC opper Beryllium CopperLearning the advantages and disadvantages of each alloy coupled with adhering to safety measures can help your shop stay safe. Sherry L. BaranekBoth Copper Beryllium and Beryllium -free Copper producers are vehementand adamant about why theirproducts are better and safer than the othersout there and between MSDSs,newspaper articles and media hype,separating fact and fiction can be aconfusing and time-consuming from both sides of thefence weigh in on the pros and cons of eachalloy so you can make the right decisionabout what is best for your shop. Beryllium a silver-gray metallicelement that occurs naturally in about 30minerals is lighter than aluminum yetstiffer than steel. For the moldmaker, thistranslates into efficient heat conduction andfaster cooling.

2 However, this element canbe hazardous to your health. According tothe Department of Energy (DOE) TrainingReference for Beryllium Workers andManagers/Supervisors Participant Manualentitled Communicating Health Risks,Working Safely With Beryllium , the mostsignificant disadvantage of Beryllium as anindustrial MATERIAL is the toxicity of its dust,fumes and soluble salts. And, unless venti-lation and other controls are used, smallparticles and chips of insoluble Beryllium -containing materials break off duringmachining and other processes and spreadthrough the air in the work of these tiny particles is thetype of exposure that can lead to chronicberyllium disease (CBD) anirreversible and sometimes fatal scarringof the lungs (see Warning Signs ofChronic Beryllium Disease). On the otherhand, all of the documented cases of CBDthus far have dealt with the element in itspure form either as pure Beryllium orpure Beryllium compounds and onceberyllium is dissolved into Copper , Beryllium comprises about percent ofthe alloy.

3 Non- Beryllium Copper alloys developed as an alternative to copperberyllium contain nickel, which also is onthe same list of hazardous , non- Beryllium alloy manufacturerspoint out that nickel is only a carcinogen infish, and when nickel is machined andground, the particles do not become airborne,as is the case with , what is a moldmaker to do whenconfronted with such a difference ofopinion on such a controversial topic?Who is right and who is wrong? How canyou be sure that the information out thereis accurate? Unfortunately, there is notenough evidence at this time to provideyou with the right answer but you cantake a closer look at both sides of the storyto make a more educated decision. Copper BerylliumNate Gildersleeve, director of technologyfor NGK Metals Corp. (Reading, PA) amanufacturer of Copper Beryllium products urges people to be cautious when dealingwith Copper Beryllium , but not to panic.

4 Asa rule, anything that is published partic-ularly by manufacturers of competitivealloys does not distinguish betweenhandling pure Beryllium and something thatcontains less than one percent of just see that name Beryllium and it isdealt with categorically. Even we actuallydon t make as much discrimination as isdeserved between pure Beryllium and aberyllium-containing alloy because wewant people to treat it with respect. The unfortunate effect based onwhat s been published and what thecompetitive MATERIAL manufacturers put outthere is that respect has been replacedby fear, Gildersleeve continues. It s verycounterproductive for us. This is the heartof the subject, yet it s appropriate to keeppeople grounded in caution theyshouldn t grind half of the MATERIAL awayand just let it get into the air because theremay be one of those unlucky couplepercent of people with right allergy thatwill cause them to contract CBD.

5 We stillhave to be responsible about it, but we arealways looking for an appropriate way toimprove people s understanding aboutwhat the risks are and where they comefrom, and what s the magnitude comparedto what they are reading about. It s hard toseparate from all of this when the wordberyllium is in your name. Carlos Cruz Wilson, a metals specialistfor Houston, TX-based National Bronzeand Metals, Inc. a producer and distrib-utor of a range of Copper and Copper alloysin various forms and shapes also feelsShop TalkRecently MoldMaking Technologymagazine conducted an online poll todiscover which alloy was more prevalentin the shop. Forty-three percent of therespondents reported that they use bothcopper Beryllium and Beryllium -freecopper alloys, 43 percent only useberyllium-free Copper alloys, and 14percent use Copper Beryllium Beryllium alloy users citedbetter cooling properties and heattransfer qualities as the main reasonsthat they use these alloys.

6 One respon-dent felt that Copper Beryllium is harderand stands up to the rigors of moldingbetter. Users of Beryllium -free copperalloys noted safety and health concernsover Copper Beryllium as the reasonthey choose Beryllium free. Severalrespondents also felt that they achievedthe same performance with Beryllium -free Copper without the problems. the public outcry over Copper Beryllium ismainly caused by ignorance. The healthissues, although legitimate, can becontrolled with the proper handling of theberyllium alloys, or even the berylliummetal itself, he states. Only whenberyllium-containing materials are ground,sanded, polished, welded, EDM d orchanged producing a dust, fume or mist will there be any risk of , milling and drilling presentlycreate no risk when done wet with theproper coolant. Only when these airborne particles areless than 10 microns in diameter are they ableto penetrate the air sacs of the lungs, thuscausing a high risk situation, Wilsoncontinues.

7 For Beryllium to cause disease,the particles must penetrate the air sacs of thelungs with repeated exposure. The personexposed also needs to be allergic to berylliumto get the disease, and statistics show that onlyabout three to four percent of the population issusceptible to the effects of Beryllium . Wilson adds that Beryllium s uniqueproperties give Copper the strength ofsteel, with the conductivity of a copperalloy, and allow the moldmaker to bringheat energy into the old and dissipate thatenergy very quickly. The results areshorter cycle times, which leads to theability to produce more parts and put moremoney in your pocket, he affirms. NGK Metals mandates that first-timebuyers of its Copper Beryllium read theMSDSs and Speaking Outliterature thatdescribe the risks of working with the alloyand how these risks are managed.

8 In anutshell, if you are set up to safely machinemetals, you also can safely machineberyllium Copper , Gildersleeve states. There isn t a lot of dry grinding that goeson out there for making a finished machinepart, or the kinds of operations that put fineparticles into the air. We do cautionmoldmakers against torch cutting pieces to cut into larger pieces they should be usinga saw. We make precautionary statementsand we are liable and required to put somevery stringent warning labels on the materialas well to protect against misuse. The non equitable facet to this that salways amazed me is that there have beenarguments for some time about how tocharacterize the health hazards ofberyllium and what levels are appropriateand so forth; and most of the competitivealloys contain nickel which has been aknown carcinogen for a long time andthere s just no fuss made about that forsome reason, Gildersleeve adds.

9 I mean,it s in your flatware, stainless steel, etc.,and the Copper alloys that compete withberyllium Copper contain higher levels ofnickel, but for whatever reason it justdoesn t seem to get much attention. Cliff Moberg, president of PerformanceAlloys (Germantown, WI) a supplier ofberyllium-free Copper alloys for use inconstructing cavities, cores and inserts, aswell as other applications refutes theaforementioned statement. While nickelis a listed carcinogen, the human exposuremethods vastly differ for the elementsberyllium and nickel, he explains. Therisk to humans with nickel is throughingestion of contaminated fish andseafood caught from nickel-contaminatedwaters. Those contamination arenas werecommon in the days of industrial wastedumping prevalent in years , since nickel is a heavymetal, the particles do not becomeairborne like Beryllium , he points out, and there is no known direct connectionto human disease with inhalation ofnickel, where there is with Beryllium .

10 Beryllium -Free CopperAccording to Moberg, his company scopper nickel alloys possess the samesuperior strength and conductivity ofcopper Beryllium , if not better. In addition,we have found that Copper berylliumproducts are sensitive to heat, hecomments. In other words, some copperberyllium alloys lose hardness, tensile andconductivity if it is heated above 600 F,where our product is unaffected to temper-atures in excess of 900 F. Moberg also contends that copperberyllium producers use a number oftactics to steer potential users toward theirproduct and mask the alloy s contents thatcould be termed questionable. The mostobvious example is that they publishcopper Beryllium s ultimate propertiesinstead of the average numbers to comparetheir products, he says. Our competitorspublish their numbers on a higher scalewhile we publish our nominal numbers taking their very best properties andpublishing them instead of publishing thetypical mean (most often attainable)numbers that we do.