Cupronickel
alloy of copper that contains nickel and strengthening elements
Cupronickel or copper–nickel (CuNi) is an alloy of copper with nickel, usually along with small quantities of other metals added for strength, such as iron and manganese. The copper content typically varies from 60 to 90 percent. (Monel is a nickel–copper alloy that contains a minimum of 52 percent nickel.)
Despite its high copper content, cupronickel is silver in colour. Cupronickel is highly resistant to corrosion by salt water, and is therefore used for piping, heat exchangers and condensers in seawater systems, as well as for marine hardware. It is sometimes used for the propellers, propeller shafts, and hulls of high-quality boats. Other uses include military equipment and chemical industry, petrochemical industry, and electrical industries.
In decorative use, a cupronickel alloy called nickel silver is common, although it contains additional zinc but no silver.
Another common 20th-century use of cupronickel was silver-coloured coins. For this use, the typical alloy has 3:1 copper to nickel ratio, with very small amounts of manganese. In the past, true silver coins were debased with cupronickel, such as coins of the pound sterling from 1947 onward having their content replaced.
“Cupronickel” enters the record as alloy of copper that contains nickel and strengthening elements. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Cupronickel, alloy and copper can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q649090. The Library of Congress control number is sh85032380. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1947.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cupronickel” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.