Successful development of new materials used to be a time consuming, often empirical approach taking decades of effort and a multi-million-dollar investment which only a few institutions could afford. Computational materials science has made great inroads in helping speed up this process. Ultimately no matter what computation says, the new material must be made, processed, tested, applied, and verified that it indeed offers either better performance in existing applications or enables entirely new applications. This is no easy task. Experience of Ecomatech in developing new carbide and intermetallic composites and a variety of other materials can be useful in helping you avoid some of the pitfalls and make your new materials development effort less costly and more efficient and successful. Ecomatech has developed:

• New Carbide composites (ex: (V,Ti)C-(Ni,Mo), VC-Ni)
• Alternate Binders for WC-based Cemented Carbides (WC-(Ni,Al) and WC-(Fe,Ni)
• Intermetallic composites (ex: NiAl-TiB₂)
• Aluminum composites (Al-TiB₂)
• Alternate Binders for Matrix Composites for Oil Field Fixed Cutter Drill Bits
• Alternate Materials for Rotary Mining Bits