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50 views18 pages

alloys副本

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Test
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Alloys

1 of 18 © Boardworks Ltd 2012


2 of 18 © Boardworks Ltd 2012
What is an alloy?
An alloy is a mixture containing one or more metal elements.

Steel is a common example of an alloy. It contains iron mixed


with carbon and other elements. Adding other elements to a
metal changes its structure and so changes its properties.

The final alloy may have


very different properties
to the original metal.

By changing the amount


of each element in an
alloy, material scientists
can custom-make alloys
to fit a given job.

3 of 18 © Boardworks Ltd 2012


What types of alloys are there?

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Pure gold?
Although pure gold is sometimes used in electronics, gold
jewellery is often a mixture of gold and other metals.

Pure gold is actually quite soft. Adding small amounts of


other metals makes the gold hard enough to use in jewellery.
Alloying gold with different metals also affects its colour.

The familiar yellow gold is an


alloy of gold with copper and silver.
Adding more copper than silver
gives redder shades.

White gold is an alloy of gold


with nickel, platinum or palladium.

5 of 18 © Boardworks Ltd 2012


What is 24 carat gold?
The carat scale is widely
used by jewellers to refer
to the purity of the gold in
a piece of jewellery.

24 carat gold is
pure (99.9%) gold.

18 carat gold is 75% gold


and 25% other metals.

12 carat gold is 50% gold


and 9 carat gold jewellery
contains only 37.5% gold.

6 of 18 © Boardworks Ltd 2012


Copper coins

Copper coins used to be made


from pure copper but as the
value of copper increased, the
metal used to make the coins
became worth more than the
actual coins.

Now most ‘copper’ coins are


made from copper alloys.

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Using metals and alloys

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Iron and steel
Iron that has been extracted from its ore in a blast furnace is
only about 96% pure. The impurities make the iron brittle.

Most of the iron


extracted in the blast
furnace will be used to
make steel, an alloy of
iron and other elements,
including carbon, nickel
and chromium.

Steel is stronger than pure iron and can be used for many
things, from saucepans to suspension bridges.

10 of 18 © Boardworks Ltd 2012


Why is steel stronger than iron?
The atoms in pure iron are
arranged in densely-packed layers.
These layers can slide over each
other, making pure iron a very
soft material.

When other elements are


added to iron to make steel,
their atoms distort the regular
structure of the iron atoms.

This makes it more difficult for


the layers of iron atoms to slide
over each other, making the
alloy stronger than pure iron.

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Types of steel

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Shape memory alloys
A smart material can change one or more of its physical
characteristics under the influence of an external stimulus.

Shape memory alloy is a type of smart material made from


metals that returns to its original shape after being deformed.

Nitinol is a shape memory alloy made from nickel and titanium.

This material can be used to


make a pair of glasses that
‘remembers’ its shape and
does not break when crushed.

Nitinol is also now used


extensively in medicine.

14 of 18 © Boardworks Ltd 2012


Nitinol springs

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Glossary

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Multiple-choice quiz

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