Inconel, Waspaloy, Hastelloy Oh My. What Makes High Temp Nickel Based Alloys Expensive & Why? May 2013

Let's start off by saying that the following types of High Temperature Nickel Based Alloys are all very pricey: Nickel 200, Inconel, Monel Hastelloy & Waspaloy. Now within those grades are subsets, for instance, contained in the Inconel Family are the following grades: Inconel 600, Inconel 625, Inconel 718, Inconel 800H/HT and Inconel 825. Monel has a couple of different grades, Monel 400, Monel R405 and Monel K500. Lastly in Hastelloy, there are Hastelloy C-276, Hastelloy X and Hastelloy C22. Ok, so that's that.

Now that we have dispensed w/the un-pleasantries we can discuss why all of these types of materials are expensive. First and foremost are their elemental compositions. All of these alloys contain Nickel which is very expensive when compared to the base price of other elements in the steel's composition. Standard grades of 300 series stainless steel might contain 8% - 14% Nickel. Standard High Temp Nickel Alloys contain anywhere from 40% - 75% and up...that is anywhere from 4X to 8x as much as typical 300 series stainless steel. We all know that nickel is an expensive material, but how much does the amount in a given steel impact the total overall cost?

Well the answer to that is relative, but as I discussed in an earlier blog post, nickel pricing is up to 66% of the total cost of stainless steel. Now, that is just for stainless which we know the 300 series contains 8% - 14% Nickel on average. Imagine the grades that contain 40%, all the way to 80% or even Nickel 200 which is almost pure Nickel at 99%. Obviously the more nickel content in a given alloy the more impact on price it will have. We can say for comparison sake that 316 round bar costs $3.00 per pound and contains 12% nickel.

Well, Inconel 625 round bar contains at least 72% Nickel. That's 6 times the amount and therefore it costs at least 6X as much, maybe more depending on other attributes but this is a fitting example as to the reason why there is such a large disparity between standard stainless steel cost and the cost of some of these nickel based alloys. In fact, Inconel 625 round bar DOES cost at least 6X more and that's buying mill quantities, forget a bar here or a couple bars there. The cost would trend upwards from there, again, based on quantity purchased, transportation, source of material...etc.

Another reason why these high temperature nickel based alloys are so expensive is based on their lack of availability, or supply. Not everyone carries them due to their inherently high cost and that means less overall availability which translates to a higher price. Now, the reason they are referred to as High Temp Alloys is because they have properties that allow them to withstand some exceptionally high temperatures in their given applications. Again, in order to withstand an application that maintains an average temperature of 2000 degrees, it requires the metal to be finished/treated a certain way. All that additional processing before the material even hits the shelf costs the mill (manufacturer) money to do, which again, more production costs equal more cost to the distributor thus more cost to the end user. These alloys are expensive, but they all have their very specific uses which we will be discussing in the upcoming posts. Hopefully this has shed a little light on the overall cost structure of these high temp nickel alloys and was a beneficial read.

Michlin Metals is a Woman Owned Small Business Aerospace Metal and Stainless Steel Distributor. Follow Michlin on Twitter @MichlinMetals, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ or on the Web at www.michlinmetals.com. More on the author on Google+.