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Metallurgy
Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and
chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their
mixtures, which are called alloys.The earliest recorded metal employed by humans
appears to be gold. Small amounts of natural gold have been found in Spanish
caves used during the late Paleolithic period, c. 40,000 BC.[1] Historical
developments in ferrous metallurgy can be found in a wide variety of past
cultures and civilizations. This includes the ancient and medieval kingdoms and
empires of the Middle East and Near East, ancient Egypt and Anatolia (Turkey),
the Incas of South America, the Greeks and Romans of ancient Europe, medieval
Europe, ancient and medieval China, ancient and medieval India, ancient and
medieval Japan, etc. Of interest to note is that many applications, practices,
and devices associated or involved in metallurgy were first established in
ancient China long before Europeans mastered these crafts (such as the
innovation of the blast furnace, cast iron, steel, hydraulic-powered trip
hammers, etc.)
Extractive metallurgy is the practice of removing valuable metals from an ore
and refining the extracted raw metals into a purer form. In order to convert a
metal oxide or sulfide to a purer metal, the ore must be reduced either
physically, chemically, or electrolytically. Extractive metallurgists are
interested in three primary streams: feed, concentrate (valuable metal
oxide/sulfide), and tailings (waste). After mining, large pieces of the ore feed
are broken through crushing and/or grinding in order to obtain particles small
enough where each particle is either mostly valuable or mostly waste.
Concentrating the particles of a value in a form supporting separation enables
the desired metal to be removed from waste products. In production engineering,
metallurgy is concerned with the production of metallic components for use in
consumer or engineering products. This involves the production of alloys, the
shaping, the heat treatment and the surface treatment of the product. The task
of the metallurgist is to achieve design criteria specified by the mechanical
engineer, such as cost, weight, strength, toughness, hardness, corrosion and
fatigue resistance, and performance in temperature extremes.
Common engineering metals are aluminium, chromium, copper, iron, magnesium,
nickel, titanium and zinc. These are most often used as alloys. Much effort has
been placed on understanding one very important alloy system, that of purified
iron, which has carbon dissolved in it, better known as steel. Normal steel is
used in low cost, high strength applications where weight and corrosion are not
a problem. Cast irons, including ductile iron are also part of this system.
Stainless steel or galvanized steel are used where resistance to corrosion is
important. Aluminium alloys and magnesium alloys are used for applications where
strength and lightness are required.
Metallurgists study the microscopic and macroscopic or sometimes known as small
and large mechanisms that cause a metal or alloy, one metal bonded with an
element to form a hybrid,to behave in the way that it does, i.e. the changes
that occur on the atomic level that affect the metal's (or alloy's) macroscopic
properties. Examples of tools used for microscopic examination of metals are
optical and electron microscopes and mass spectrometers. Metallurgists study
crystallography, the effects of temperature and heat treatment on the component
phases of alloys, such as the eutectic and the properties of those alloy phases.
The macroscopic properties of metals are tested using machines and devices that
measure tensile strength, compressive strength and hardness. Learn Metallurgy,
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