Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Beryllium.
Abstract
The review, made to examine the role of the Department of Defense in using beryllium and in advancing the technology, found numerous advantageous applications as part of important components. Present applications, such as for guidance systems, re-entry vehicles, brakes, and thrust chambers, would suffer significant performance penalties if beryllium were not available. Several design trade-offs show beryllium to be competitive with, or superior to, filamentary composites, on a stiffness-to-weight basis, in advanced applications for lightweight structures. Increased usage of beryllium, however, will be unlikely without certain necessary development work which is described. In addition to beryllium's unique capabilities, a major justification for support of beryllium technology is its usefulness as an option in the event that competitive materials prove to be unsatisfactory in critical applications. Civilian applications (except in the form of an alloying element), now or foreseeable, are very limited because beryllim remains an expensive material. Accordingly, fulfillment of beryllium's potential advantages for military systems requires government support to ensure that beryllium in the required forms will be available, particularly for applications now being designed. Evaluation of pertinent standard cutting and forming operations and also some of the newer fabrication operations in terms of cost and applicability are recommended. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 1971
- Accession Number
- AD0732482