Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The chemical elements can be broadly divided into metals, metalloids, and nonmetals according to their shared physical and chemical properties.All elemental metals have a shiny appearance (at least when freshly polished); are good conductors of heat and electricity; form alloys with other metallic elements; and have at least one basic oxide.
A metal (from Ancient Greek μέταλλον (métallon) 'mine, quarry, metal') is a material that, when polished or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. These properties are all associated with having electrons available at the Fermi level, as against nonmetallic materials which do not. [1]:
A material property is an intensive property of a material, i.e., a physical property or chemical property that does not depend on the amount of the material. These quantitative properties may be used as a metric by which the benefits of one material versus another can be compared, thereby aiding in materials selection.
Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon with improved strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Because of its high tensile strength and low cost, steel is one of the most commonly manufactured materials in the world.
Metals are insoluble in water or organic solvents, unless they undergo a reaction with them. Typically, this is an oxidation reaction that robs the metal atoms of their itinerant electrons, destroying the metallic bonding. However metals are often readily soluble in each other while retaining the metallic character of their bonding.
The properties of steel depend on its microstructure: the arrangement of different phases, some harder, some with greater ductility. At the atomic level, the four phases of auto steel include martensite (the hardest yet most brittle), bainite (less hard), ferrite (more ductile), and austenite (the most ductile). The phases are arranged by ...
Slater [221] divides the metals 'fairly definitely, though not perfectly sharply' into the ordinary metals and the peculiar metals, the latter of which verge on the nonmetals. The peculiar metals occur towards the ends of the rows of the periodic table and include 'approximately:' gallium, indium, and thallium; carbon, silicon '(both of which ...
The properties of steel vary widely, depending on its alloying elements. The austenizing temperature, the temperature where a steel transforms to an austenite crystal structure, for steel starts at 900 °C (1,650 °F) for pure iron, then, as more carbon is added, the temperature falls to a minimum 724 °C (1,335 °F) for eutectic steel (steel ...