IE 114 Material Science & General Chemistry Recitation # 4 1.

The wear resistance of a steel shaft is to be improved by hardening its surface. This is to be accomplished by increasing the nitrogen content within an outer surface layer as a result of nitrogen diffusion into the steel. The nitrogen is to be supplied from an external nitrogen-rich gas at an elevated and constant temperature. The initial nitrogen content of the steel is 0.002 wt%, whereas the surface concentration is to be maintained at 0.50 wt%. In order for this treatment to be effective, a nitrogen content of 0.10 wt% must be established at a position 0.40 mm below the surface. Specify appropriate heat treatments in terms of temperature and time for temperatures between 475oC and 625oC. The preexponential and activation energy for the diffusion of nitrogen in iron are 3x 10-7m2/s and 76,150 J/mol, respectively, over this temperature range.

2. A sheet of BCC iron 1 mm thick was exposed to a carburizing gas atmosphere on one side and a
decarburizing atmosphere on the other side at 725oC. After having reached steady state, the iron was quickly cooled to roomtemperature. The carbon concentrations at the two surfaces of the sheet were determined to be 0.012 and 0.0075 wt%. Compute the diffusion coefficient if the diffusion flux is 1.4 x10-8kg/m2-s. 3. Cite the values of the diffusion coefficients for the interdiffusion of carbon in both - iron (BCC) and iron (FCC) at 900 oC. Which is larger? Explain why this is the case. 4. At what temperature will the diffusion coefficient for the diffusion of copper in nickel have a value of 6.5x10-17 m2/s? 5. Calculate the number of vacancies per cubic meter in iron at 850 oC . The energy for vacancy formation is 1.08 eV/atom. Furthermore, the density and atomic weight for Fe are 7.65 g/cm3 and 55.85 g/mol, respectively.

6. Which of these elements would you expect to form the following with copper: (a) A substitutional solid solution having complete solubility? (b) A substitutional solid solution of incomplete solubility? (c) An interstitial solid solution? 7. For both FCC and BCC crystal structures, there are two different types of interstitial sites. In each case, one site is larger than the other, which site is normally occupied by impurity atoms. For FCC, this larger one is located at the center of each edge of the unit cell; it is termed an octahedral interstitial site. On the other hand, with BCC the larger site type is found at 1 1 0, , that is, lying on (100) faces, and situated 2 4 midway between two unit cell edges on this face and one-quarter of the distance between the other two unit cell edges; it is termed a tetrahedral interstitial site. For both FCC and BCC crystal structures, compute the radius r of an impurity atom that will just fit into one of these sites in terms of the atomic radius R of the host atom. 8. (a) Suppose that Li2O is added as an impurity to CaO. If the Li_ substitutes for Ca -2 what kind of vacancies would you expect to form? How any of these vacancies are created for every Li- added? (b) Suppose that CaCl2 is added as an impurity to CaO. If the Cl- substitutes for O 2-, what kind of vacancies would you expect to form? How many of the vacancies are created for every Cl- added? 9. For both FCC and BCC crystal structures, the Burgers vector b may be expressed as b =

a [h, k , l ] where a is 2

the unit cell edge length and [hkl] is the crystallographic direction having the greatest linear atomic density. (a) What are the Burgers vector representations for FCC, BCC, and simple cubic crystal structures? (b) If the magnitude of the Burgers vector b =
1 a 2 (h + k 2 + l 2 ) 2 determine the values of b for aluminum and 2

tungsten. 9.(a) The surface energy of a single crystal depends on the crystallographic orientation with respect to the surface. Explain why this is so. (b) For an FCC crystal, such as aluminum, would you expect the surface energy for a (100) plane to be greater or less than that for a (111) plane? Why? 10. a)Would you expect Frenkel defects for anions to exist in ionic ceramics in relatively large concentrations? Why or why not? b) briefly define the term stoichiometric. 12. a)What is the composition of an alloy that consists of, a) in weight percent 6 at% and 94 at%? b) in atom percent 98 g Pb and 65 g of Sn ?