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{{Short description|Swiss company}}
'''Nivarox''', also known as '''Nivarox - FAR SA''' is a Swiss company formed by a merger in 1984 between '''Nivarox SA''' and '''Fabriques d'[[Ébauche#Assortiment|Assortiments]] Réunis (FAR)'''. It is currently owned by the [[Swatch Group]].<ref>{{cite news |work=Financial Times |title=Nivarox: Top component maker pulls back the curtain |url=https://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/90f7457e-8dde-11dc-8591-0000779fd2ac,dwp_uuid=24d8b986-8c3a-11dc-b887-0000779fd2ac.html |date=November 10, 2007 |first=Haig |last=Simonian |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071212012910/https://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/90f7457e-8dde-11dc-8591-0000779fd2ac,dwp_uuid=24d8b986-8c3a-11dc-b887-0000779fd2ac.html |archive-date=2007-12-12 }}</ref> Nivarox is also the trade name of the metallic alloy from which its products are fabricated.  Its notable property is that its coefficient of elasticity is remarkably constant with temperature.  Nivarox is most famous for producing hairsprings that are attached to the [[balance wheel]] inside a mechanical watch movement, as well as mainsprings which provide the motive power for the watch.
Nivarox was developed for use in watch hairsprings in 1933 by [[:de:Reinhard Straumann|Reinhard Straumann]] in his [[Waldenbourg]] laboratory. FAR was the corporate name chosen in 1932 for the entity comprising several companies and subsidiaries located in [[Le Locle]] [[Switzerland]], which at the time manufactured various watch components.
==Nivarox alloy==
As a trade name, Nivarox is an [[acronym]] from the [[German language|German]] {{langx|de|Nicht variabel oxydfest|label=none|lit=Non-Variable Non-Oxidizing}}. The Nivarox alloy is a [[nickel]] [[iron]] [[alloy]] used mainly in the watch industry for [[hairsprings]] for [[balance wheels]], but also in other micro-machine industries and in certain medical equipment and surgical instruments, in the same category as [[Elinvar]], [[Ni-Span]], [[Vibralloy]], [[Nivaflex]] and other similar alloys.  The "non-variable" refers to the alloy's most notable property: that it has a low temperature coefficient of elasticity; its [[elasticity (physics)|elasticity]] does not change much with temperature.  There are several versions of the Nivarox alloy depending upon the intended application: Nivarox-CT, but also with suffixes CTC, M, W. Chemical compositions vary in wt% as follows for all Nivarox alloys : Iron as balance, a wide variation in nickel between 30-40%, beryllium 0.7-1%, some versions have molybdenum at 6-9% while others have instead chromium 8%, titanium is present in some compositions at 1%, manganese at 0.7-0.8%, silicon 0.1-0.2% and carbon in traces up to 0.2%.<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1007/10065028_63 |chapter=7.1.5.2 Fe- or Co-based ferromagnetic Elinvar alloys |title=Magnetic Alloys for Technical Applications. Soft Magnetic Alloys, Invar and Elinvar Alloys |volume=19 - Magnetic Properties of Metals |series=Landolt-Börnstein - Group III Condensed Matter |publisher=Springer Verlag |year=1994 |last1=Fukamichi |first1=K. |pages=216–227 |isbn=3-540-55590-0 }}</ref> A typical composition would be for the early version Nivarox-CT (by wt %) : Fe 54%, Ni 38%, Cr 8%, Ti 1%, Si 0.2%, Mn 0.8%, Be 0.9%, C < 0.1%.<ref>{{cite book |title=Woldman's engineering alloys |page=805 |publisher=ASM International |year=2000 |isbn=9780871706911 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RzMOiOEQ-oMC&pg=PA805 }}</ref>
When used for critical watch components, the alloy reduces errors due to temperature variation.  Hairsprings made of this alloy have a [[spring constant]] which does not vary with temperature, allowing the watch's balance wheel, its timekeeping element, to keep better time.   Along with the earlier alloy [[Elinvar]], this alloy made obsolete the expensive [[balance wheel|compensation balance]] used in precision timepieces in the 19th century.<ref>[http://hiro.alliancehorlogere.com/en/Under_the_Loupe/The_Hairspring.html Under the Loupe: The Hairspring]</ref>  Nivarox springs are now used by most [[watchmakers]] worldwide, with a global market share of 90%.<ref>{{cite book |last=Simon |first=Hermann |authorlink=Hermann Simon (manager) |date=2009 |title=Hidden Champions of the Twenty-First Century: The Success Strategies of Unknown World Market Leaders |publisher=[[Springer Science+Business Media]] |isbn=978-0-387-98147-5 |page=10}}</ref> The alloys also see limited use for specific components of sensitive scientific instruments.
== External links ==
*{{official|https://www.nivarox.com/}}
==References==
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Nickel alloys]]
[[Category:Horology]]
[[Category:Manufacturing companies of Switzerland]]