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What alloys are used to make aeroplanes or coins?

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Aeroplane alloys

Generally, a number of different alloys are used in the Aerospace industry, ranging in uses from jet turbine blades to wings and fuselages. Aluminium alloys are very commonly used, as are alloys of:

Magnesium (a very light alloy)
Nickel (has excellent high temperature properties)
Titanium (lightweight, very strong and corrosion resistant)
Zirconia (can withstand very high temperatures so is used for coating parts of jet engines)

We actually have information about many of these on the cards in our card game:

http://www.whystudymaterials.ac.uk/students/fun/cardgame/cardgame.asp

Coins

Historically, our 1p and 2p coins have been made from bronze, our silver coins (5p – 50p) from a copper-nickel alloy and our pound coins from a nickel-brass alloy. In 1992 the bronze coins were replaced with a copper-plated steel. £2 coins are made from a combination of copper-nickel (inner) and nickel-brass (outer).

There’s an interesting page with some more details here on The Royal Mint’s website:

http://www.royalmint.com/Corporate/BritishCoinage/CirculationFigures/Alloys_Used.aspx

by Chris Taylor