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In various RET-Monitor articles on materials, the use of superalloys in race engines has been covered. Their originally intended use was in gas turbine engines for the aerospace industry, and they were developed specifically for their capability at elevated temperatures. They are directly responsible for significant steps forward in gas turbine engine development, with limiting component surface temperature having increased well over 150 C since the 1970s due to materials alone. In...

We could successfully argue that many plain bearings are actually little more than coatings, and that the shell is simply a carrier for the very thin layer of material which is doing the hard work for us. That would be ungenerous though, as plain bearings rely heavily on their backing to provide strength, adhesion and thermal conductivity. The shells also have a very important role to play in controlling clearances. However, some applications are sufficiently lightly loaded to allow...