Reducing the Toxicity of Beryllium with Hot Isostatically Pressed Alloys

For applications requiring ultralightweight, stiff and thermally stable materials, such as space flight, beryllium is the ideal material. Its acceptance is limited, however, because processing beryllium presents a serious health hazard to workers. In particular, machining beryllium creates toxic dust which can cause berylliosis, a chronic lung disease. This effort will explore whether alloys of beryllium made by Hot Isostatic Pressing can be machined without generating respirable beryllium particles. Four alloying elements have been selected for Phase I: aluminum, magnesium, copper and titanium. Three to four compositions of each alloy will be manufactured under conditions likely to produce finely mixed and homogeneous materials. Calibrated air samples will be taken while each alloy is test machined to determine the quantity of respirable dust produced. Alloys which produce little or no respirable dust and are within 15% of the density of beryllium will be candidates for further study as lower cost materials for beryllium applications.