Nature and Properties of Materials

Professor Bishakh Bhattacharya

Department of Mechanical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Lecture 12
Metals 2
In the last lecture, we have talked about metals and metallic alloys, which are ferrous having
ferrous connections, but now we are going to talk about nonferrous alloys. This also has very
interesting applications. Before starting that, I would like to ask you a question that what is
the material composition of this Beverage Can?

(Refer Slide Time: 00:28)

Let us say this is a Coke Can, what is the material composition of the Can. So you can guess
it actually that what are the various materials that is possible. One thing you will notice once
you finish up a Beverage Can is that it becomes quite light when you finish it up. So, it is
metallic, but it is very light material that you may guess so that is the clue.
(Refer Slide Time: 01:11)

If you actually really find it out, you will see that that lightness is attributed because of its
aluminum base, most of the Beverage Can consist mostly of Aluminium, but also it is an
alloy, this is a nonferrous alloy, it has 1percent of Magnesium, 1percent of Manganese, 0.4
percent of Iron and 0.2 percent of Silicon and a very small percentage of Copper. So that is
very interesting that when we talk about a nonferrous alloy, this is one of the very interesting
examples of a nonferrous alloy.

And one of the good things is that this is made of an Aluminium alloy and this Aluminium
alloy can be actually mostly derived from a recycled material. So which means it is actually a
very green way of using a material. I have given a site, which you can actually visit in order
to know more of this type of Coke Can how it is made, etc.
(Refer Slide Time: 02:17)

So in today’s lecture, we are going to talk about the first of all the various classifications of
metallic alloys. Then we are going to specifically focus on Aluminium and its alloys,
Titanium and its alloys, Zinc and its alloys, Copper and its alloys, Nickel and its alloys,
Cobalt and its alloys and finally something which is totally non crystalline form of metal that
is bulk metallic glass. So quite a bit of thing, you would like to cover in this particular
lecture.

(Refer Slide Time: 02:53)

Now, what are the limitations of ferrous alloys? Ferrous alloys no doubts they are very
extensively used, but particularly for transport applications for white good, they are not good
why, because they have relatively high density, there you can feel that they are very heavy.
They have also low electrical conductivity and they have an inherent susceptibility to
corrosion and in certain environments, let us say under saline water.

Let us say this Coke Can example for example, Coke is highly acidic, so if you put the Coke
on ferrous material, you would see that how it is getting corroded with respect to time. But
this particular Aluminium alloy composition, it has a very good corrosion resistance. So the
density, the electrical conductivity and the corrosion resistance are some of the important
points why one has to go for nonferrous alloys.

(Refer Slide Time: 03:57)

Now, the classification of metallic alloys if you see then there is a branch, the ferrous alloys
with the base metal as Iron, then you have Steel, cast Iron, etc. and I have covered this in the
last lecture. In today’s lecture, we are going to talk about nonferrous alloys, where we are
going to talk about various light alloys like from Aluminium, Zinc, Titanium and their alloys
and also heavier alloys for example, alloys which has Copper origin, Copper, Nickel, Cobalt,
etc. and their alloys, so a light group and a heavy group.

So let us first start to talk about the light group, then we will go to the heavy group, so light
nonferrous alloys let us talk about it.
(Refer Slide Time: 04:40)

The first material that we will consider in this is Aluminium why Aluminium, I already told
you that Aluminium is very abundant in earth crust. In fact, it is so abundant that it is usually
makes no sense that why do not we make each and everything out of Aluminium. But we
have not made it historically for a very long time mainly because extracting Aluminium from
earth crust is a very energy intensive procedure and it was not very well known till about the
end part of 19th century that people started to realize.

And Aluminium at that point of time becomes a highly fashionable material. In fact, during
the Napoleon’s regimen in France, Aluminium is used as ornaments, so that is how the
journey of Aluminium started. But people very soon understood the importance of
Aluminium in terms of transport materials so making the sheets, making the radiation films,
making wires, Beverage Cans, there are many applications.

And any many has a Face centered cubic FCC crystal structure with a melting point of about
600 degree, density is very light 2700 kg per meter cube. Compare it with Steel; Steel is
something like 7400 kg per meter cube, so it is one-third the density of Steel. Elastic modulus
of course is lower; 70 GPa Steel has much higher elastic modulus. In color it has a silver grey
lustre and it has high thermal and electrical conductivity.
(Refer Slide Time: 06:38)

Now Aluminium one of the very important reasons why it became very popular is that the
fuel consumption, the fuel became there was a fuel crisis at one point of time and also huge
pollution. In order to reduce that in Europe they have to come up with a transport solution,
which is based on lighter materials. And there what is found as that if you can replace the car
body by Aluminium, you can save something like 300 kg weight reduction in a medium sized
vehicle of about 1400 kg.

So that is very good because for every 100 kg of reduction in the automotive sector there is
20percent lower exhaust gas emission, and also proportionally reduces the operating cost. So
as you reduce, you are going to gain more and more reduction in terms of exhaust gas and
also in terms of fuel economy. That is how Aluminium started to be used in many cars to
know the bodies actually substituted from ferrous alloys to Aluminium and its alloys.
(Refer Slide Time: 07:49)

Now in not only the automobile transportation sector, but today if you look at the aircraft
transportation sector let us see this A 340, the wing part of the A 340 if you look at it, that is
actually made of a Aluminium alloy based plate. And here this Aluminium alloy based plate
as you can see this is a rim box here, this is preferred because it has improved toughness, and
of course lower weight and it has increased resistance to both fatigue as well as corrosion. So
that is the point where even the aircraft industry has got interest in Aluminium base system.

(Refer Slide Time: 08:29)

Now there are many alloys, Aluminium is one thing, which has been explored with various
materials for example, Copper, Magnesium, Silicon, Manganese and Zinc. And depending on
what kind of alloying is happening, there are different grades of Aluminium. For example, the
grade one is having pure Aluminium about 99percent pure. And there is this XXX here; the
initial XX means actually the percentage of Aluminium.

And sometimes you will see XX point X series when you try to buy it from the market, the
digit after decimal is 0 if you see in this X that means for casting. And if you see 1 here, that
means this is ingot, so that is the kind of way of depicting various grades of Aluminium. So
grade one is for pure Aluminium as I said, grade 2 is actually alloyed with Copper, that is
known as Duralium.

It is the first material that is used for aircraft application. Grade 3 is with Manganese; grade 4
is with Silicon, 5 with Magnesium, 6 with Magnesium and Silicon, 7 with Zinc and 8 with
other elements such as Lithium. And if you get a T, that T means it is also heat treated along
with that. So that is how we actually kind of define various types of grades of Aluminium.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:10)

Now, the next thing that became important in terms of transport applications is actually
Titanium. Its density is actually higher than Aluminium but lower than Steel, so we always
say in a density scale density of Aluminium is actually less than the density of Titanium and
density of Titanium is less than the density of Iron based alloys. So it is about 4500 kg per
meter cube, its melting point is quite high 1660.

Elastic modulus in pure form is also higher than Aluminium, but is lower than Steel. Tensile
strength is about 150 to 500 MPa. It has a silvery grey white metallic luster and its alloying is
having certain typicality in it, it has basically 3 kinds of structures. Below 883 degree it has a
Alpha structure which is hexagon closed packed HCP.
Beyond 883 it has a Beta structure, now you may find out in alloys that it has either an Alpha
or a Beta or near Alpha or Alpha-Beta, these 2 are actually based on presence of some amount
of Beta configuration in it. Because of this excellent lightweight high-temperature and good
strength, it is having applications in high strength and temperature components, biomedical
applications and also in jewellery because it has good lustre as I told you.

In fact, there are many aircraft applications where this is used. The Alpha phase, there are
some of the materials that are generally used for stabilization Aluminium, Gallium, and
Germanium or Carbon or Nitrogen, even Oxygen is used for Alpha phase stabilization. Beta
phase, there is Molybdenum, Vanadium, Tantalum, Niobium, Manganese, Iron, Chromium,
Cobalt, Nickel, Copper and Silicon they are used for Beta phase stabilization, so that is
titanium as such.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:34)

Now titanium alloys, let us talk about a little bit of them Alpha Titanium alloy to begin with
that is the low-temperature phase. It contains the Alpha phase stabilizers, low to medium
strength; it has good notch toughness, reasonably good ductility, and excellent mechanical
properties at cryogenic temperature, but it is non-heat treatable that is the problem with Alpha
series and is generally very much weldable.

So example, one of them is Ti-8AL and 1 Molybdenum, 1 Vanadium [Link], so 8percent

Aluminium, 1percent molybdenum, 1percent Vanadium and rest is Titanium, through which
you can get a tensile strength of about 950 MPa and that is used in jet engine components
because of particularly the cryogenic temperature it has to undergo very low-temperature
regions and perform, so there titanium alloy is very much useful.

The second group is Near Alpha Titanium, which has not only Alpha phase stabilizer but also
some amount of Beta phase stabilizer very low, 1 to 2percent. They offer high temperature
creep strength and oxidation resistance. One example is that about 6percent Aluminium,
2percent Stannum tin, 4percent Zirconium, 2percent Molybdenum, you get a much higher
tensile strength 1100 Mega Pascal and that is used for high-temperature jet engine
components and high-performance automotive valves because it gives you a very high-
temperature kind of performance.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:25)

Then you have the Alpha-Beta, this one is metastable that means it is not very much stable
configuration, generally includes some combination of both Alpha and Beta stabilizers. It is
weldable, but if you weld there is risk of loss of some amount of ductility, Strength levels are
medium to high, hot forming qualities are good but cold forming often represents difficulties.
Creep strength is not usually as good as in most Alpha alloys.

One example is Titanium with 6percent Aluminium, 4percent vanadium, is used where low-
density and good corrosion resistance is necessary such as in aerospace industry, Bio
implants, prosthetic applications. Finally, the important one is the Beta Titanium alloys. And
this one is fully heat treatable, generally weldable, it is actually capable of high strength and
also it possess very good creep resistance up to quite a high-temperature and cold formability
is generally excellent.
One of the examples is with 10percent Vanadium, Iron 2percent and Aluminium; you get a
tensile strength of 1200MPa. This is used for many critical aircraft structures such as landing
gear applications as you can see that the landing gear part many a times is made of Titanium
alloys, which is a Beta Titanium alloy, so that is about the titanium alloy.

(Refer Slide Time: 16:04)

The next is Zinc, now Zinc shares one commonality with Titanium is that this is also
hexagonally close packed HCP, but its density is very high. We are suddenly now jumping
from a low-density to a reasonably high density very close to Iron, 7140. Melting point is also
not very high, 420 degrees centigrade; it has a silvery grey lustrous appearance and easy
castability.

Application of Zinc is mostly in terms of corrosion resistance like galvanic coating, corrosion
protection of structures and also in batteries. And you must be knowing that in our body on so
you need up to very small percentage trace almost, but it is needed so that to prevent to have
good immunity, brain growth, to prevent diarrhea, pneumonia and all sorts of such problems.
So that is why zinc to a very small trace amount is generally needed in our body also.
(Refer Slide Time: 17:35)

So that is the basic Zinc of course, now Zinc has many alloys which we will talk about
particularly when we will discuss our other heavy nonferrous alloys. So when we will talk
about nonferrous alloys, one of the best materials is actually copper. Now Copper has a Face
Centered cubic structure FCC. Melting point quite high, 1085 degrees centigrade, density
wise it is heavier than Steel 8920, it has a distinctive orange color as you can see the color.

It is used for all the traditional utensils and it is used because one very important thing is that
it has a good corrosion resistance, so it does not get corroded very easily. The other good
thing of it is that it is soft, malleable, ductile and very tough. So that means you can give it
various shapes, it has a very good machinability and it has also one of the reasons why it is
used for cooking systems is that it has good electrical and thermal conductivity.

In fact, in terms of thermal conductivity, the three materials that are generally used Silver has
the highest, next is Copper, and next is Aluminium. And if it is in a very pure form like
99.99percent, then it is used for electrical wires otherwise, we use it in terms of alloys. So it
has about 97percent conductivity of silver, but the cost of it is 1 by 8 of Silver. So you may
say that this is the poor man’s silver and that is the good part of actually copper.
(Refer Slide Time: 19:13)

Now, what are the alloys that Copper is generally used to make, the most important one is
Brass, which contains Zinc, earlier we talked about Zinc. And Zinc actually goes as a
substitutional impurity, which means that Copper atom and Zinc atoms are of considerable
size, means one can be substituted inside the lattice of the other. Also, Tin, Aluminium,
Silicon, Magnesium and Nickel and Lead are also added.

And important thing about Zinc addition is that if Zinc increases, its strength increases, its
hardness increases, and ductility also increases, but the conductivity reduces, it comes down.
Now commercially, when we get Brass, there are two types of Brass, one is called Alpha
Brass which has about 30percent of Zinc. This has many variations which for example, Gun
metal which has 2percent Zinc used in bearings or bushes or say Gliding metal 5percent of
Zinc, used in coins, medals and jewellery.

Or, say Admiralty Brass, which has about 28percent of Zinc, 1percent of Tin which is used in
condensers, evaporators, heat exchangers. Then the Cartridge Brass, which has about
30percent of Zinc, it is also used in ammunition cartridge cases, automotive radiators, lamp
fixtures, so the degree of Zinc in much higher in it. And if you get even higher percentage
that is Alpha plus Beta Brass, you get things like Muntz metal, 40percent Zinc which is used
in architectural works or valve stem.

Or the Naval Brass which has Zinc as well as Tin, you get it for marine construction,
propeller shaft so that these things get a very good corrosion resistance, so that is about the 2
types of Brasses that are developed from Copper.
(Refer Slide Time: 21:23)

There is of course a very important variation of Copper alloy, which is Bronze. An entire part
of civilization is categorized it as Bronze Age right. So and in it instead of Zinc, Tin is the
main substitutional impurity. Now this also gives a better mechanical property as well as
better corrosion resistance than Brass, but it is comparatively hard and resists the surface
wear.

For example, if you use the Phosphor Bronze, about 10percent Tin and 1percent Phosphorus,
then it is used in music instruments and springs because it has a very good castability. If you
go for Aluminium bronze, about 11percent Aluminium and 4percent Tin, you get a high
strength and corrosion resistance and is used in bearings, landing gear components, et cetera.

If you go about 3percent of Silicon, Silicon Bronze. It is self-lubricating, high strength and
toughness and hence it is generally used for bearing cages. Also, Copper has 2 relatively less
used, but important other alloy Beryllium Copper. It has highest resilience, so it is used for
springs, screwdrivers, pliers, wrenches, etc.

And the German silver which is about 60percent Copper, 20percent Nickel and 20percent
Zinc, this one looks like silver, it has silvery appearance, but it is not silver , so that is
because it is Copper, Nickel and Zinc. And nickel increases the electrical resistivity, improves
strength and corrosion resistance, so it is not only used for this type of things, but also used
for condenser tubes, cutleries, et cetera. The German silver which has considerable amount of
Coppers, amount of Nickel and some amount of Zinc in it, so that is about the Copper alloys.
Next, we are going to talk about nickel.
(Refer Slide Time: 23:47)

Now, Nickel is also even higher density in comparison to Copper 8900, but it has also similar
FCC structure and the melting point is pretty high 1455 degrees centigrade. It is also silvery
white lustre of metal, metallic lustre that is why, when it is used with Copper this lustre
predominates and you get German silver out of it.

And application wise it is used nowadays very much in batteries and also in some alloys with
Copper like one is very famous Monel metal primarily composed of Nickel and Copper with
traces of Iron, Manganese, Silicon and Carbon. It has a strong corrosion resistance and it is
used in heat exchanger tubes, food processing plants, marine applications, etc., wherever
there is a chance of corrosion and this is of very good use.

Of course, the other use of Nickel is in super alloys. Super alloys are something which is used
in jet engine blades and it for that you need a high creep and oxidation resistance at a high
temperature like 1100 degrees centigrade and there Nickel-Chromium alloys work in a
fantastic manner, so these are the super alloys when Nickel is basically used. Next, we are
going to talk about Cobalt.
(Refer Slide Time: 25:15)

So Cobalt already we have seen that it is used for example with Steel as an alloy or also with
other metals, but on its own Cobalt has had the Hexagonal close packing HCP. Density
similar to Nickel 8900, melting point also is very high and the lustre is silver grey, elastic
modulus is about 209 GPa consider about like Steel, main application is for high performance
alloys particularly when just like Nickel and Zinc you need a corrosion and wear resistance,
the Cobalt comes into picture.

Some high-speed Steels contain cobalt, I already talked about them for heat and wear
resistance, some medical orthopedic implants, Cobalt, Chromium and Molybdenum together,
there is a Vitallium, which is used in medical orthopedic implants, and they are sometimes
alloyed with Platinum, 95percent Platinum and 5percent Cobalt for jewellery applications.

Interestingly, it is also having some uses with ceramics, glasses, gives a distinctive blue tint
Cobalt blue glass, Cobalt is also used. So basically it has high-temperature anticorrosive
applications. Now finally, so far we have talked about various types of nonferrous alloys, but
all of them are having crystal structures like Hexagonal close pack structure or FCC structure.
(Refer Slide Time: 27:20)

Now can metal not have an amorphous shape that is, can we not have metals which has no
regular crystal structure? Yes, we can, but to do that you have to have a rapid cooling from
the liquid state. Now, until recently the cooling rate required is of the order of 10 to the power
5 to 10 to the power 6 Kelvin per second so, so fast you are supposed to cool it if you want to
really make a metal amorphous.

So naturally, even if you can make it, you can make it something like a fraction of a
millimeter thickness that means you can make some ribbons and wires, etc, which you can
use for transformer cores or as magnetic sensors. Why should we be going for amorphous
state is because with the amorphous shape, we are supposed to get more machinability, the
ductility, etc. while sacrificing some of the properties maybe like the thermal resistance or
conductivity.
(Refer Slide Time: 28:16)

Now the bulk metallic glass is something, which its cooling rate is bought down to something
like 1 to 100 Kelvin per second and that is possible because of some kind of eutectic mixture
that you are that today we can do for preparing this. For example, you can see that this is a
Bulk Metallic Glass structure and you can see that in the same picture that there is no grain
unlike this polycrystalline metal structure, where you can see that so many grain boundaries
of there.

So as there are grain boundaries what we are going to get, one is that we are going to get the
dislocation resistance, dislocation cannot spread across the boundaries, which means that you
are going to get resistance in terms of really forming the system and on the other hand, in this
particular case you can get a very good formability of the system.

But you are going to keep sound the good properties of the metal like good elastic modulus;
you are also going to get better properties in terms of some of the things like the resistivity of
the system, etc. So that is how the bulk metallic glass is coming out to be a very good
material which can be used for some of the very specific applications where instead of
ceramics because ceramics are brittle. That brittleness is not there in metals, so that is where
you can actually substitute it.
(Refer Slide Time: 30:05)

This is one of the examples that if you use the Zirconium, Titanium, Nickel, Copper and
Beryllium in terms of a mix and then if you use this rapid cooling technique, you get a tensile
strength of about 2 GPa. And the fracture toughness, you get high fracture toughness, 20 MPa
square root meters. And the density is much lower, so that is another advantage of an
amorphous state; the density is about 6.1percent cube.

And this alloy exhibits almost no plastic strain at failure, but typically shows up to 2.5percent
elastic strains. So that you compare with metals generally, it is something like 0.1percent. So
the elastic strain becoming 2.5percent is a very high value. In fact, its first commercial
application was in golf club head, so that is the good part of the Bulk Metallic Glass.

(Refer Slide Time: 31:08)

So in this last picture if you look at it that in terms of strength if you can make the glassy
alloys, you are going much higher above the Steel that is where the advantage of the glassy
alloys is. And if you look at the percentage strain also, you can go much higher above the
Steel Aluminium, etc., something like which we can compare only with polymers.

So that is the good thing of it that you get a much higher level of strain, but very high level of
strength, so that combination makes the glassy alloys like Bulk Metallic Glasses to be a very
unique new material. This is where we are going to put an end of our metallic alloys, so in the
next lecture we are going to come up with metal strengthening and metal corrosion, thank
you.

Keywords- Non-ferrous materials, Aluminium, Titanium, Zinc, Copper, Nickel, Cobalt alloys