Phase diagram equilibrium diagrams

Phase Diagram. Equilibrium diagrams of interest to the ceramist represent crystallographic changes and the melting (or conversely the solidification) behaviour of compounds, mixtures, and... 

The most detailed studies to date have involved the n=l system, i.e., the calcium-free system in which superconductivity was first detected near 20 K (1). This system can be described by a pseudo-ternary phase diagram. Equilibrium phase fields have... 

The science dealing with phase transitions is thermodynamics. Using thermodynamics, we may discuss which phase will eventually be formed when a material (of composition c and phase p) is maintained under the same conditions for an infinite time, and the phase reaches the minimum energy state (equilibrium state) under given thermodynamic conditions (temperature and pressure). Experimentally, a phase diagram (equilibrium phase diagram) is prepared, and we may use the data... 

Phase diagram A diagram that shows equilibrium temperature-pressure relationships for different phases of a substance. 

When oil and gas are produced simultaneously into a separator a certain amount (mass fraction) of each component (e.g. butane) will be in the vapour phase and the rest in the liquid phase. This can be described using phase diagrams (such as those described in section 4.2) which describe the behaviour of multi-component mixtures at various temperatures and pressures. However to determine how much of each component goes into the gas or liquid phase the equilibrium constants (or equilibrium vapour liquid ratios) K must be known. 

System in which the solid phases consist of the pure components and the components are completely miscible in the liquid phase. We may now conveniently consider the general case of a system in which the two components A and B are completely miscible in the liquid state and the solid phases consist of the pure components. The equilibrium diagram is shown in Fig. 1,12, 1. Here the points A and B are the melting points of the pure components A and B respectively. If the freezing points of a series of liquid mixtures, varying in composition from pure A to pure B, are determined, the two curves represented by AC and BC will be obtained. The curve AC expresses the compositions of solutions which are in equilibrium, at different temperatures, with the solid component A, and, likewise, the curve BC denotes the compositions... 

The general case of two compounds forming a continuous series of solid solutions may now be considered. The components are completely miscible in the sohd state and also in the hquid state. Three different types of curves are known. The most important is that in which the freezing points (or melting points) of all mixtures lie between the freezing points (or melting points) of the pure components. The equilibrium diagram is shown in Fig. 7, 76, 1. The hquidus curve portrays the composition of the hquid phase in equihbrium with sohd, the composition of... 

Experimental results describing limited mutual solubility are usually presented as phase diagrams in which the compositions of the phases in equilibrium with each other at a given temperature are mapped for various temperatures. As noted above, the chemical potentials are the same in the equilibrium phases, so Eqs. (8.53) and (8.54) offer a method for calculating such... 

The accompanying sketch qualitatively describes the phase diagram for the system nylon-6,6, water, phenol for T > 70°C.f In this figure the broken lines are the lines whose terminals indicate the concentrations of the three components in the two equilibrium phases. Consult a physical chemistry textbook for the information as to how such concentrations are read. In the two-phase region, both phases contain nylon, but the water-rich phase contains the nylon at a lower concentration. On this phase diagram or a facsimile, draw arrows which trace the following procedure ... 

The phases present in products can differ from those predicted from equilibrium diagrams. Nonequilibrium metastable phases form at solidification rates experienced in commercial ingots. Because of the low rate of diffusion of iron in alurninum, equilibrium conditions can only be established by long heat treatments and are very slowly approached at temperatures below about 550 °C. Small additions of other elements, particularly manganese, can also modify the phase relations. 

For a ternai y system, the phase diagram appears much like that in conventional liquid-liquid equilibrium. However, because a SCF solvent is compressible, the slopes of the tie lines (distribution coefficients) and the size of the two-phase region can vary significantly with pressure as well as temperature. Furthermore, at lower pressures, LLV tie-triangles appear upon the ternary diagrams and can become quite large. 

The iron-carbon solid alloy which results from the solidification of non blastfurnace metal is saturated with carbon at the metal-slag temperature of about 2000 K, which is subsequendy refined by the oxidation of carbon to produce steel containing less than 1 wt% carbon, die level depending on the application. The first solid phases to separate from liquid steel at the eutectic temperature, 1408 K, are the (f.c.c) y-phase Austenite together with cementite, Fe3C, which has an orthorhombic sttiicture, and not die dieniiodynamically stable carbon phase which is to be expected from die equilibrium diagram. Cementite is thermodynamically unstable with respect to decomposition to h on and carbon from room temperature up to 1130 K... 

Figure 6.3 The iron-carbon phase diagram showing the alternative production of iron and cementite from the liquid alloy, which occurs in practice, to the equilibrium production of graphite...

Whenever you have to report on the structure of an alloy - because it is a possible design choice, or because it has mysteriously failed in service - the first thing you should do is reach for its phase diagram. It tells you what, at equilibrium, the constitution of the alloy should be. The real constitution may not be the equilibrium one, but the equilibrium constitution gives a base line from which other non-equilibrium constitutions can be inferred. 

The equilibrium diagram or phase diagram summarises the equilibrium constitution of the alloy system. 

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