Materion Technical Materials has announced the release of eStainless, a new composite material comprised of a lightweight, highly conductive aluminum core within an outer skin of ductile stainless steel.
eStainless maintains 83 percent of the stiffness of solid stainless steel while weighting 40 percent less and exhibits eight times its thermal conductivity, making it an excellent thermal management material.
“The new product has implications for light weighting as well as managing thermal rise in today’s powerful consumer electronics,” Joseph Kaiser, vice president of product development at Materion Technical Materials, said. “The combination of thermal, weight and stiffness properties in eStainless is truly unique, and the composite is highly formable, even capable of deep draws. This is important considering its intended use in high-throughput stamping and forming operations.”
For structural components in consumer electronics such as cases and mid-plates, eStainless is a good alternative to magnesium or conventional stainless steels, which often require heat-spreading laminates.
“These films are not only expensive and add thickness but also involve an additional assembly step. With internal space at a premium, it’s always a benefit when a single material can serve multiple purposes,” Kaiser said.
eStainless is made using Materion’s Gamma Clad process. By modifying surface energies of the stainless and aluminum components, Materion is able to clad a unique metallurgical composite that is capable of deep drawing. The continuous reel-to-reel process economically produces 500mm (20-inch) wide industrial scale coils with thicknesses as low as 0.1mm (0.004-inch).
