Different compositions in Metals - Blog 8 - Yukta Yogeesh


27/August/2020

   


 

Metals are vast like ocean and studying the characters and properties takes ages. It is not that easy to differentiate those which look similar, leaving the chemical composition apart. Iron and steel sometimes look so similar and so is the case of brass and bronze. It might be so easy to define them based on the elements that are added to the parent metals to attain the other metal alloys, but one cannot so easily judge the metal purely based on the appearance or the visual aspect of it.

   It becomes easy if we understand the manufacture of these other elements that look so similar. In the case of iron and steel, if polished and laminated, both of them will look very similar, but one can perceive the difference based on the thickness, colour, grains at the section. Usually, the parent metals like iron and bronze are much thick, they expose the sections in a much native way and exhibit a rough/real/heavy nature. But the alloys of these materials like steel are usually thin, their sections are not so detail, usually gives an unfinished appearance/incomplete smelting process and they exhibit a very soft, glossy and laminated nature.

Getting into details, Iron is a natural mineral, with a chemical element of atomic no. 26, by mass, the most common element on Earth. Cast Iron is another type of iron with more than 2% Carbon in it and Wrought Iron is in contrast, with very less amount of Carbon content in it. This can be distinguished by a wood-like grain finish in the sections.
Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon containing less than 2% carbon and 1% manganese and small amounts of silicon, phosphorus, sulphur and oxygen.
Stainless Steel is a family of iron-based alloys with chromium, nickel, carbon, nitrogen, manganese as additives. All those used in railings are usually stainless steel. It rusts less and thus, easy to maintain.
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (such as aluminium, manganese, nickel or zinc) and sometimes non-metals or metalloids such as arsenic, phosphorus or silicon.
Brass is a substitutional alloy [1]of copper and zinc, in proportions which can be varied to achieve varying mechanical and electrical properties.


[1] Substitutional alloy has atoms of the two constituents which may replace each other within the same crystal structure, here in Brass, Copper and Zinc.

No. of words - 406

Yukta Yogeesh 





 

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