METALS

Overview
● Structure: Matthew Korthauer
● Properties: Niki Harrison
● Processing: Carysanne Fielding
● Performance: Owen Traubert
● Characterization: JT Tichenor
Structure
Structure
Structure
Structure
Structure
Structure
Properties: Malleability
● The ability of metal to be bent or
shaped without breaking, also
known as compression
● Most malleable metals:
○ Gold, Silver, Iron, Aluminum, Copper
● Harder metals have reduced
malleability due to an increase in
grain boundaries

https://youtu.be/X0M85u4
7ENk?t=62
Properties: Ductility
● The ability of metal to withstand
tensile stress, also known as
pulling
● Most Ductile Metals:
○ Gold, platinum, silver, copper
● Examples:
○ Jewelry
○ Bridge cables

https://youtu.be/D8U4G
5kcpcM?t=204
Properties: Conductivity
● The ability for metal to conduct
electrical current or heat
● Thermal and electrical current are
related
● Most Conductive Metals
○ Silver, copper, gold
● Examples
○ Wiring
○ Batteries
Properties: Melting Point
● Most metals are solid at room
temperature due to the high melting
point
● Metals with lower melting points
have weaker bonds
Properties: Reactivity
Class I Metals: The Active Metals (Oxygen and Water)
● Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs (Group IA)
● Ca, Sr, Ba (Group IIA)

Class II Metals: The Less Active Metals (Acids)

● Mg, Al, Zn, Mn

Class III Metals: The Structural Metals (Strong Acids)

● Cr, Fe, Sn, Pb, Cu

Class IV Metals: The Coinage Metals (Inert)

● Ag, Au, Pt, Hg https://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=9bAhCHedVB4
Properties: Hardness
● The ability of metal to resist surface
wear, abrasion, and denting from
force
● Exception to metal hardness include
sodium and potassium
● Determined by the Rockwell test
○ Measured the depth or diameter of an
indent made under a large load
Processing
Shaping: Heat Treating:

-Cold working -Hardening: Tempering, Quenching

-Casting -Softening: Annealing

-Milling

-Forging
Processing: Cold Working
-Bent or shaped below recrystallization temperature
-Dislocations are generated and move
-Dislocations increase, bunch-up and lose the ability to move

This strengthens the metal, making it harder to deform.

Also known as work hardening or strain hardening.

Processing: Casting
-Heated until liquid
-Poured from a crucible through a hollow channel called a sprue into a mold
-Cooled until solid
-Extracted from mold

Casting is most often used for making complex shapes that would be difficult or
costly to make otherwise.
Processing: Milling
-Rotary tool

-Cuts metal into desired shape

-Ideal for precision shaping

Processing: Forging
-Sometimes heated to make shaping easier

-Compressive forces applied (hammering / rolling)

-Strengthens material by sealing cracks, and closing gaps within material.

Processing: Hardening
Quenching
- Heated above critical temperature
- Cooled rapidly in water or oil
- Improves hardness and strength

Tempering
- Heated below critical temperature
- Held and quenched
- Improves ductility and toughness while retaining hardness
Processing: Softening
Annealing
- Heated above critical temperature
- Cooled slowly
- Softens structure
https://youtu.be/T5DFD--Vkv8
Performance
● Performance is characterized as how a material evolves and changes over its
life as a component, and how this impacts durability and quality.
● Of all the general types of materials, metal is the most reactive, owing to the
nature of metallic bonding. This reactivity, which leads to corrosion and
oxidation, is one major factors when considering performance.
● Metal is also more susceptible to accumulated fatigue than other materials,
as unlike ceramics, which shatter, and polymers, which tend to stretch, it
develops dislocations over time, making it stronger, but more brittle
Performance: Corrosion
● Metals, depending on their reactivity, give up electrons and dissociate from
the lattice, usually into an aqueous environment, as ions. Secondary reactions
can then create an insoluble crust.
● There are different modalities for
corrosion, and usually, many
different types of corrosion
will be seen together
Different modalities of corrosion
Performance: Corrosion
● Corrosion can cost as much as 5% of a nation’s GNP, making it a major
problem
● General corrosion is responsible for the greatest loss of
material, but is easy to detect, and thanks to the ductility
and toughness of metals, it generally doesn’t cause the
biggest problems
● With localized forms of corrosion, damage has often
become severe enough that structural integrity is gone
by the time it is visible
● Due to these considerations, sensitive parts must be
routinely inspected, serviced, and if need be, replaced
Performance: Fatigue
● Fatigue involves a very complex system of interconnected factors including
cyclic stress, residual stress, temperature, geometry, corrosion, and many
others
● Simplistically, fatigue can be reduced to two phases: crack formation and
crack propagation
● For an application with low loading and many cycles, crack formation is the
major phase, as formation requires greater stress than propagation
Crack formation microscopically and a real world
example
Performance: Wear
● In most applications, wear can be mitigated
through design, but there are still plenty of cases
in which it is a major concern, e.g. mining and ore
processing
● There are several different types of wear
○ Abrasion wear, the primary type
○ Adhesive wear
○ Oxidation wear
Abrasion

Adhesion

Oxidation
Performance: Wear
● Abrasion is the most commonly encountered form of wear, and can occur in
two forms
○ Two-body abrasion, which is when two metals are in contact, and protrusions on the harder
metal cut into the softer metal
○ Three-body abrasion, which is when foreign hard particles become trapped between two
surfaces or embedded in a surface. In the case of particles trapped between surfaces, both
may be abraded, but in the case of embedded particles, usually the particles are trapped in the
softer surface, and abrade the opposing surface.
○
Performance: Wear
● Wear by adhesion occurs when, at a number of small sites, two metals cold
weld, and upon relative motion, small amounts of the weaker metal are torn
off
Performance: Wear
● Oxidative wear occurs as a combination of abrasion and oxidation. The first
stage of material loss is oxidation. Abrasion with another surface scrapes off
the oxide layer, allowing more to form, resulting in more material loss. This
process is much slower than abrasion and adhesion.
Characterization
● General Definition: Process by which a material’s structure and properties are
probed and measured.
● Methods of Characterization
○ Microscopy
○ Spectroscopy
○ Macroscopic Testing
Characterization - Microscopy
● General Definition: Method of probing
and mapping out the surface of a
material
● Common Microscopy Tools
○ Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM)
○ Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM)
○ Scanning Tunnelling Microscope (STM)
○ Atomic Force Microscope (AFM)
Characterization - Spectroscopy
● General Definition: Techniques that use a range
of principles to help determine the chemical
composition, composition variation, crystal
structure, and photoelectric properties of
materials
● Common Spectroscopy Tools:
○ X-Ray Diffraction (XRD)
○ Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry (ESI-MS)
Characterization - Macroscopic Testing
● General Definition: a group of techniques used
to characterize various macroscopic properties
of materials
● Common Macroscopy Tools:
○ Mechanical Testing
■ Tensile
■ Fatigue
■ Hardness
■ Toughness
Sources
● https://www.nde-ed.org/EducationResources/CommunityCollege/Materials/
Structure/metallic_structures.htm
● http://chemed.chem.purdue.edu/genchem/topicreview/bp/ch13/structure.ph
p
● https://depts.washington.edu/matseed/mse_resources/Webpage/Metals/m
etalstructure.htm
● https://www.nde-ed.org/EducationResources/CommunityCollege/Materials/
Structure/linear_defects.htm
●
Sources
● Properties
○ http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/pertab/metal.html
○ https://www.thebalance.com/malleability-2340002
○ https://www.e-education.psu.edu/matse81/node/2107
○ https://www.thebalance.com/ductility-metallurgy-4019295
○ https://www.allmetalsfab.com/metal-best-conducts-electricity/
○ https://www.lehigh.edu/~amb4/wbi/kwardlow/conductivity.htm
○ https://www.steelforge.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/metal_melting_ranges.jpg
○ https://sciencing.com/melting-points-metals-vs-nonmetals-9198.html
○ http://chemed.chem.purdue.edu/genchem/topicreview/bp/ch9/activity.php
○ http://mech413.blogspot.com/2013/07/hot-working-and-cold-working-forging.html
○ https://www.azahner.com/resources/metal-hardness
○ http://www.substech.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=hardness_test_methods
○
Sources
● Processing
○ The Science and Engineering of Materials, Seventh Edition
○ Donald R. Askeland and Wendelin J. Wright
Sources
● Performance
○ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128035818027089
○ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780124114678000039
○ https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780857095091/underground-pipeline-corrosion
○ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9781845697150500029
○ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780124201132000040
○ http://emrtk.uni-miskolc.hu/projektek/adveng/home/kurzus/korsz_anyagtech/1_konzultacio_elemei/wear_and_wear_mec
hanism.htm
Sources
● Characterization
○ https://books.google.com/books?id=7fjLBQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepa
ge&q&f=false
○ https://www.zeiss.com/microscopy/us/solutions/materials-science/metals.html
○ https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Scanning-electron-microscope-SEM-photos-of-metal-powders-depicting-the-shape-
and-the_fig5_324422926
○ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003267017302878
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX-tOk9iAWM