Question

What is an alloy? List some common alloys and their uses
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Answer 1

Answer:

Alloy plays a very important role in our daily life. In fact without using an alloy one day is also not passed. Utensils in the kitchen, vehicles, mobile phones etc are various alloys which are being used and made by human. Even most of the machinery tools and engineering equipments are made up of alloys.

What is an alloy?

An alloy is a metallic intimately mixed solid mixture of two or more different elements, at least one of which is metal. In molten state alloys are homogeneous and in solid state they may be homogeneous or heterogeneous.

List of Important Alloys and their Uses

Alloys

Compositions

Uses

Brass

Cu + Zn

In making utensils.

Bronze

Cu + Sn

In making coins, bell and utensils.

German Silver

Cu + Zn + Ni

In making utensils.

Rolled Gold

Cu + Al

In making cheap ornaments.

Gun Metal

Cu + Sn + Zn + Pb

In making guns, barrels, gears and bearings.

Dutch metal

Cu + Zn

In making artificial ornaments.

Delta metal

Cu + Zn + Fe

In making blades of aeroplane.

Munz metal

Cu + Zn

In making coins.

Monel metal

Cu + Ni

For base containing container.

Rose metal

Bi + Pb + Sn

For making automatic fuse.

Duralumin

Al + Cu + Mg + Mn

For making utensils.

Magnalium

Al + Mg

For frame of aeroplane.

Solder

Pb + Sn

For soldering.

Type metal

Sn + Pb + Sb

In printing industry.

Bell metal

Cu + Sn

For casting bells and statues.

Stainless steel

Fe + Cr + Ni + C

For making utensils and surgical cutlery.

Nickel steel

Fe + Ni

Answer 2

Alloy, metallic substance composed of two or more elements, as either a compound or a solution. The components of alloys are ordinarily themselves metals, though carbon, a nonmetal, is an essential constituent of steel.

Alloys are used in a wide variety of applications, from the steel alloys, used in everything from buildings to automobiles to surgical tools, to exotic titanium alloys used in the aerospace industry, to beryllium-copper alloys for non-sparking tools.

5 Common Alloying Elements

Chromium.

Molybdenum.

Vanadium.

Manganese.

Nickel.

Uses of Alloys in Daily Life

• Alloying elements addition for specific design and materials can often be accomplished without major reductions in the attributes associated with pure metals, like conductivity, ductility and resistance against corrosion.
• If two or more metals are mixed in the liquid state to produce a final solution the resulting alloy is called a binary alloy. In case of superalloys where the utility could be within microwave cooker or baking oven as many as ten alloying elements may be used to obtain the desired performance.
• The use of alloy in daily life is now irrevocable and if the good factors like high tensile strength, hardness are taken into consideration then materials like gas burners, microwave utility vessels, modern-day pressure cooker, pressure valve, washing machine tub, grinder blades, and other simple daily use materials like vehicular parts of bikes and cars etc are produced.
• The metals nickel and copper completely dissolve into each other in a liquid state and retain their complete solubility in each other on freezing to form a series of alloys.
• When one type of metal is alloyed with another kind either substitutional or interstitial solid solution are usually formed. Substituted solid based solutions are considered for those where the atoms of both solute and solvent are of nearly the same size and the solute atoms simply substitute for atoms of solvents on the crystalline lattice.
• Interstitial solid solutions are those in which the solute atoms are found to be much smaller and fit within the spaces between the existing solvent atoms in the crystalline structure.
• The only solute atoms small enough to fit in the interstices of metal crystals are hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon and boron.

Common Uses of Alloys

• A typical metal is hard and shiny, tough as well as strong. It helps in conducting or carries electricity and heat very well. Metals have thousands of uses in daily life and are often mixed or combined with other metals or substances to form alloys.
• Almost any machine or device which are used for precision instrumentation has at least one metal in it and as the most widely used form is iron we can see the use of steel by using a little amount of non-metal carbon. The use of steel is universal and the day begins with utensils made of steel. The next very common kitchen vessel is aluminium and its alloys.
• The next daily use or rather universally used metal is gold which is worn by almost everyone. The ornaments made up of pure gold is never used by the public as they are found to be very soft and hence the use of copper or doping with copper makes it little wearable. The doped gold is relatively strong and doesn’t bend as easily as the pure form.
• The door locks and doorknobs are again made up of brass which is again an alloy form of zinc and copper.
• High-performance blades of jets or washing tub or heating elements of microwave and water heater are again nothing but a doped form of the pure metals.
• The common saucepans made up of aluminium never last long but if doped with little magnesium, copper or silicon makes it tough enough to withstand high temperature and do not deform.
• The aircraft body made up of main aluminium is composed of doping with copper, magnesium and manganese which makes it tough, corrosion-free, lightweight and is widely used in aviation industries.