Nickel-Based Superalloys

I have been reading about superalloys a bit recently. My main area of interest is single-crystal castings. Since metals have inherent crystal structures, and they tend to cleave along crystal boundaries, it is best to reduce the number of possible cleavage lines in applications that require very high performance. Aircraft turbine engines operate at very high internal temperatures. The use of single-crystal cast turbine blades and other parts (along with hollow, forced-air cooled blades)has resulted in engines capable of much higher performance and efficiency than older engines. Anyway, I sound like a technical manual, so I'll quit for now.

For more on nickel-based superalloys:

http://www.msm.cam.ac.uk/phase-trans/2003/Superalloys/superalloys.html