QuesTek Innovations LLC has awarded a license to Latrobe Specialty Steel Co. to produce and sell Ferrium® M54™. Ferrium M54 is a premium-quality steel that has an ultimate tensile strength of 294ksi, yield strength of 250ksi, and fracture toughness of 110ksi square root inch as typical properties. QuesTek computationally designed and developed M54 to be an alternative to alloys such as AerMet® 100, while meeting or exceeding all key properties. Applications of this class of alloys can include aircraft landing gear and arresting tailhooks, shock struts, tow bars, drive shafts, actuators, blast containment devices, fasteners, golf club face inserts and other highly-loaded components. QuesTek received funding and direction from the U.S. Navy Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) to computationally design and develop M54, under both an earlier Phase I and a current Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project. NAVAIR also awarded QuesTek a Phase I SBIR project to evaluate and test M54 and other materials for arresting tailhook applications. QuesTek’s design, development and licensing of M54 builds upon its earlier design, development and licensing of Ferrium S53®, another commercially-available ultra high strength steel. While M54 has significantly greater yield strength and fracture toughness than S53, the resistance of S53 to general corrosion is far greater than that of M54.
