Pratt & Whitney niobium alloy development failure

$18M of United Technologies internal R&D spent on oxidation-resistant niobium alloys at the urging of an 85-year-old Pratt & Whitney engine designer on the NRC committee. Predictable failure given niobium-oxygen reactivity.

I was all ready to say, look, we've really exhausted the limit of our materials technology to go to higher temperatures, and we're going to have to improve things by design, as opposed to pushing the limits. I'm thinking of this graph. But he's speaking before me, and he says, "We've really pushed the limits of design and we now need better materials. And I got United Technologies' Board of Directors to spend $18 million of their own internal money developing new oxidation-resistant niobium alloys." So I had to change what I was going to say so I didn't completely contradict him, but also say, well, we really have a challenge in materials to go much further, because we do.

NRC committee anecdote (c. 2004). P&W engine designer convinced his board to spend $18M of corporate profit on oxidation-resistant niobium. Tom, having done his doctoral thesis on niobium-aluminum, knew it was a fool's errand. Result: nothing. Used to illustrate that engine designers and materials engineers should talk.

I served on a committee of the National Research Council about twelve years ago, and we were supposed to be telling the Air Force how to spend the three hundred million dollars they have each year for improved jet engines. There were two of us who were materials people, and we had people on there from Pratt & Whitney and General Electric — these were the people who had headed up the design of the last major engine for those companies. The first day, forty of us in this room, and they said let's go around, everybody introduce yourself and tell us what you think this committee ought to be doing. I was going to explain that we've really reached the limit of our materials, we really can't get higher-temperature materials, because everything else oxidizes above 2200 degrees Fahrenheit. The guy sitting next to me happened to be the guy from Pratt & Whitney who had designed one or two of their major engines. He spoke first, and he said, we've really gone as far as we can in our design, and we really need better materials. I was going to say the exact opposite, which I did say and explain. He had convinced the board of directors of Pratt & Whitney to spend 18 million dollars of their own profit — niobium melts at very high temperatures, but it oxidizes very easily. He wanted to come up with an oxidation-resistant niobium. I did my doctoral thesis on niobium-aluminum, and I knew that was a fool's errand. He was the engine designer and he knew he needed higher-temperature engine materials, so he convinced them to spend 18 million dollars of their own profits — this wasn't government money — on developing a better engine material. I knew it was a fool's errand. And he admitted, we spent 18 million dollars and we got nothing. I could have predicted that. He maybe should have talked to a materials engineer at Pratt & Whitney before he had gone off and done that.