There is an inextricable link between the properties of materials and their applications.

For some applications, a certain property, such as electrical conductivity, is critical. For other applications, a certain material is the best choice because of its overall performance profile. Sometimes, the best solution is not a single material but a combination or composite of several materials, allowing designers to tailor the desired properties to meet the challenges posed by an application. This means that a material like molybdenum, which is very expensive by common engineering material standards, must demonstrate significant advantages over competing materials.

Although alloying can increase strength, in all cases molybdenum is primarily strengthened through mechanical deformation, typically through standard rolling, swaging, and forging processes. Deformation can increase molybdenum's strength up to four times, depending on the amount of deformation applied. For deeply processed materials such as wire, even higher multipliers are possible. Annealing can eliminate the effects of processing and restore its original characteristics. The maximum service temperature of alternative alloys may be slightly higher than that of pure molybdenum. However, to significantly improve high temperature strength, metallurgists have sought other alloying methods.