Contracts for the Experimental Methods Group
Last revision (4/16/96)
Group members email: Billy Abernathy,Susana Castro, Jeff Haeberle, Eddie Mooney, Jamie Yeakle
Sometime between making a bunch of fancy predictions about the phases and properties of a material and spending millions to start mass production, it's good practice to test those predictions, making sure you and Mother Nature see things the same way. Experiments are the necessary procedures used to confirm or develop these theories. When developing phase diagrams, you cannot avoid getting in the lab and making some compositions and analyzing them to find the real phases and properties present.
Topics:
- How'd they do that? Yeah, you've seen the picture of the C-Fe phase diagram, but you need to respect how metallurgists have developed steel phase diagrams. (Jeff Haeberle)
- The proof. Once you've made some compositions, you need some analysis tools (XRD, SEM, DTA etc.) to determine all the phases present. (Susanna Castro and Eddie Mooney).
- A rough estimate? Scientists have worked long and hard to derive equations to calculate phase diagrams. If you can dig up the necessary constants, we've written a little FORTRAN program to find the liquidus and solidus lines of a two component system. (Billy Abernathy)
- Three's company! If two components don't satisfy your appetite, why not try adding a third and find out about ternary phase diagrams. (Jamie Yeakle)
Comments? Suggestions? Contact Billy Abernathy at hwaber@vt.edu
http://www.eng.vt.edu/eng/materials/classes/MSE2094_NoteBook/
96ClassProj/experimental/contracts/exporig.html
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