Materion partners with Aristo Cast on Aluminum-Beryllium line

Materion Brush Beryllium & Composites, a Materion Corp. company based in Elmore, Ohio, has entered into a strategic manufacturing and marketing partnership with Aristo Cast Inc., Almont, Mich., for its proprietary AlBeCast aluminum-beryllium investment castings product line. The two companies initiated their partnership in October 2013.

Aristo Cast has received numerous awards for best in class magnesium castings from the American Foundry Society, the Investment Casting Institute, and the International Magnesium Association. Leveraging its lightweight alloy investment casting experience, Aristo Cast provides Materion with a breakthrough shell technology that in qualification proved not only to improve casting quality, but dramatically reduce production costs of aluminum-beryllium investment castings.

"Aristo Cast technology represents a game-changing development for the production of AlBeCast," said Lawrence Ryczek, vice president and general manager of Materion Brush Beryllium & Composites. "With the Aristo Cast shell technology, our expanded capability and world class casting team, we are confident AlBeCast will capture new applications that weren't possible even two years ago," he continued. "We are in qualification with a number of aerospace, defense and semiconductor firms seeking to capitalize on this alloy system and casting technology breakthrough. As previously announced, we are in qualification with Lockheed as a supplier for the F-35 Lightning II's Electro-Optical Targeting System."

Jack Ziemba, president and owner of Aristo Cast added, "Materion has the resources to grow the reinvigorated AlBeCast product line, and we look forward to working side by side with them to do it."

The Aristo Cast partnership coincides with Materion’s own new investment in casting technology, equipment and upgrades at its Elmore facility. The operation offers customers rapid prototyping and solidification modeling to provide investment cast parts with short lead times and competitive pricing. Aluminum-beryllium castings provide favorable cost/benefit advantages for technically demanding applications requiring a combination of ultra-light weight, stiffness, mechanical stability and thermal properties.