Nickel physical properties

Gobalt is a brittle, hard metal, resembling iron and nickel in appearance. It has a metallic permeability of about two thirds that of iron. Gobalt tends to exist as a mixture of two allotropes over a wide temperature range. The transformation is sluggish and accounts in part for the wide variation in reported data on physical properties of cobalt. 

Copper, nickel, cobalt, iron, and zinc (270) for their physical properties using ultraviolet and infrared spectrometry (271). 

Nickel occurs in the first transition row in Group 10 (VIIIB) of the Periodic Table. Some physical properties are given in Table 1 (1 4). Nickel is a high melting point element having a ductile crystal stmcture. Its chemical properties allow it to be combined with other elements to form many alloys. 

Chapter 5. Physical Properties Under Elastic-Plastic Compression Table 5.1. Compressibilities of nickel-iron alloys (after Graham et al. [67G01]). 

An alloy of nickel was known in China over 2000 years ago, and Saxon miners were familiar with the reddish-coloured ore, NiAs, which superficially resembles CU2O. These miners attributed their inability to extract copper from this source to the work of the devil and named the ore Kupfemickel (Old Nick s copper). In 1751 A. F. Cronstedt isolated an impure metal from some Swedish ores and, identifying it with the metallic component of Kupfemickel, named the new metal nickel . In 1804 J. B. Richter produced a much purer sample and so was able to determine its physical properties more accurately. 

Steel is essentially iron with a small amount of carbon. Additional elements are present in small quantities. Contaminants such as sulfur and phosphorus are tolerated at varying levels, depending on the use to which the steel is to be put. Since they are present in the raw material from which the steel is made it is not economic to remove them. Alloying elements such as manganese, silicon, nickel, chromium, molybdenum and vanadium are present at specified levels to improve physical properties such as toughness or corrosion resistance. 

The basic corrosion behaviour of stainless steels is dependent upon the type and quantity of alloying. Chromium is the universally present element but nickel, molybdenum, copper, nitrogen, vanadium, tungsten, titanium and niobium are also used for a variety of reasons. However, all elements can affect metallurgy, and thus mechanical and physical properties, so sometimes desirable corrosion resisting aspects may involve acceptance of less than ideal mechanical properties and vice versa. 

From Fig. 3.11, it can be seen that by increasing the chromium content while maintaining a limited amount of nickel-equivalent elements, first mixed martensite-ferrite structures are produced and then fully ferritic. This is 6-ferrite, that is a body-centred cubic structure stable at all temperatures. Relative to martensite it is soft, but it is also usually brittle. For this latter reason, usage has in the main been in small section form. This and some other disadvantages are offset for some purposes by attractive corrosion resistance or physical properties. 

Nickel-iron alloys have a number of important applications that are derived from such special physical properties as their unique magnetic characteristics in the regions of 35, 50 and 80% nickel and from their abnormally low thermal expansion in the region of 36-50% nickel. Although not specifically used as corrosion-resistant materials, their high resistance to attack from many common environments is of benefit in their specialised applications. 

The addition of about 20% nickel to cast iron produces materials with a stable austenitic structure these materials are sometimes known as austenitic cast irons but are more often referred to commercially as Ni-Resist cast irons. The austenitic matrix of these irons gives rise to very different mechanical and physical properties to those obtained with the nickel-free grey cast irons. The austenitic matrix is more noble than the matrix of unalloyed grey irons and it was shown in the early work of Vanick and Merica that the corrosion resistance of cast iron increases with increasing nickel content up to about 20% (Fig. 3.42). 

Table 4.22 Physical properties of corrosion-resistant nickel alloys...

On uptake of hydrogen, at lower temperatures distant enough from that of the critical isotherm, the physical properties of palladium or nickel re-... 

Table 16.1 summarizes the physical properties of the elements from scandium through nickel. Notice the similarities in their melting and boiling points, but the gradual increase in density. 

---