See Service Details

Fort Wayne Metals manufactures three medical grades (NiTi#1, NiTi#2 and NiTi#4) of Nickel-Titanium or Nitinol wire products available in either the cold worked (CW) condition ready for heat treatment or as straightened super-elastic (SE) wire.

Each medical grade of Nitinol material is comprised of near equal atomic weight percentage of nickel and titanium. Our most common medical grade, NiTi#1 exceeds chemistry requirements set forth by ASTM F2063 for use in surgical implants. At Fort Wayne Metals, all incoming Nitinol raw materials are inspected to ensure they meet proprietary internal specifications for chemistry, ingot transformation temperature, material homogeneity, and microstructure. Optimized to promote an exceptionally smooth and uniform surface finish quality, all wire products utilize a proprietary single and multi crystalline diamond drawing die technology. Medical grade Nitinol wire may be purchased in the cold worked (CW) or the super-elastic condition (SE) and after the correct super-elastic heat treatment will accommodate strain up to 8% without permanent kinking at body temperature. The transformation temperatures and mechanical properties for each of our three standard grades of Nitinol are presented in the table at the bottom of the page.

Nitinol Wire Applications

Our Nitinol wire is used for many different medical and industrial applications. The table below gives some typical engineering applications for each of our standard Nitinol medical grades:

NiTi#1 - Guidewires, stents, stylets, forming mandrels, stone retrieval baskets, orthodontic files, etc.

NiTi#2 - Ideal for applications that require a high loading and unloading plateau stresses at room temperature, cell phone antennae, eyeglass frames.

NiTi#4 - Provides the best cycling performances at 37°C at body temperature.