ANSWER:
REPORT ON
NICKEL AND NICKEL ALLOYS
Nickel is a very old material and its alloys have very high
importance too. These alloys are used from the start of the
civilisation. Nickel and its alloys have good chemical properties
which makes it better for the application such as tools, weapons,
and different coins in which nickel is used in varying amount.
The future of nickel and its alloy is very bright and demanding
as they forms elements which produce more better properties when
alloyes with the other metals and materials. Thats why duw to very
good property, nickel is used as a alloying element with various
metals and improve the property.
Nickel has also one good property which is called solubility and
its complete solubility with copper makes it more convinient to use
by making different parts and components. It has also wide
solubility range with iron and chromium.
Applications of nickel and its alloys
There are majority and variety of applications are available
which is easily available with nickel and its alloys. Majorly
corrosion resistance property of nickel makes it far far better
than any other alloying element. Some application where nickel and
its alloys are used widely are as given below
- Medical aplications like medical tools and appliances
- Petrochemical industries
- Chemical industries
- Aircraft gas turbine application
- Aircraft gas turbines
- Nuclear power plants
- Steam power plants
There are other no of applications of nickel and its alloys
which are based on the physical properties and are given as
below
- Heat resistant applications: Nickel based
alloys are used in most high temperature applications as nickel and
chromium alloys which contains more than 15 % of chromium shows
good resistance to oxidation and carburization. These are used for
harsh environment at high temperature and shows good resistance
after 760 degree centigrade. In this catogary different material
combination are as given below
- Ni Cr alloys having up to 70% Nickel and small % of
silicon
- Ni Cr Fe alloys which contains nearly 70% nickel and Si and
I
- Corrosionn resistance: Nickel and its alloying
elements are the best material or media which can offer bst
corrosion resistance behaviour. It depens upon the corrosive media
that how the surface of material will be affected under corrosion
and how the metal will behave under the cirumstances.
- Electric resistance alloys: Various alloying
elements with nickel is used in electrical applicances which varies
from electrical equipment to control sytems. When they regulate
electric charaterstics at that time these elements act as resisting
alloys and when used in application of furnaces and applications to
generate heat, is called heating alloys.These types of alloys can
be given as different alloying combinations with nickel and as
given below
- Ni Cr Si alloys containing up to 80% of Nickel
- Ni Cr Fe alloys containing up to 60% of Nickel
- Ni Cr Al alloys and they can contain Nickel up to 95%
- Cu Ni alloys containing up to 30 % nickel
- Low expansion alloys:Nickel and its alloys
have a very high impact on the thermal expansion of irons. With the
various ranges of temperature, nickel based alloys over various
ranges of temperature can depicts different thermal expansion
ranges. Addition of cobalt with the nickel and iron can produce the
alloys which will be having low coficient of expansion, high
strength and constant modulus of elesticity. Iron nickel alloys
which are also known as INVAR has loweest expansion and in
atmospheric conditions they have contant dimensions.
- Soft magnetic alloys: These are NI Fe based
alloys which are also known as high nickel alloys and they have
high permeabilty and low induction at saturation. Nickel % is
around 80% and molebidenum is also used up to 2%
- Shape memory alloys: Metallic materials which
have the ability to returns back to its previous shape when the
heating media is removed are called shape memory alloys and they
are vastly used now a days. Nickel and titanium combination with
50-50% of the contribution is the most used shape memory
alloy.
Commercial nickel and its alloys
The commercial nickel is the the nickel and nickel based alloys
which are having fully austenite structure and having high
resistance to aques corrosion and high temperature resistance
- Commperically pure and low alloy nicles are used in producing
of powders and in anode form. It should have the controlled nickel
contents to acheive the best result
- These metals have high density and offer better magnetic and
electronic property
- They also have high corrosion resistance
- Good thermal transfer characterstics
- There are Nickel 200, Nickel 201, Nickel 270 etc which are
known as commercial nickels
- Cobination of nickel and copper alloys have high resistance to
corrosion in sea water and chemical environments
- These are used in various nuclear submarines and under water
applications
- Differnet heat temperature application can be created by
changing the composition.
- Nickel chromium and nickel chromium iron series have higher
strength and resistance to hig temperatures. They are used in
military system for power generation. These are known as Alloy 600
and Nimonic alloys
- Some high temperature nickel alloys which are used currently
arr Alloy 601. Alloy X750, Alloy 718, Waspalloy used in various
applications as age hardening, avoiding cracks during welding
process, jet engine applicatiopns, flat rolled products for
airospace application where nickel based alloys are ajorly used as
we discussed before, military power system applications, for
improved oxidationa nd nitriding resistance
- Some corrosion resistance nickel based alloys are Alloy0625,
Alloy g3, Alloy C-22, Alloy C-276, lloy 690. They are used in
various corrosion resistance phenomenon and applicationas pitting
and cervice corrosion resistance,excellent resistance to oxidation
and nitric acid.
- Soft magnetic alloys: The nickel iron alloys
shows a better magnetic permeability properties which are very
important in electrnics applications. Used in direct current motors
and generator designs which are directly designed and made on the
basis of nickel based alloys as per the high magnetic permeability
property.
- Welding alloys: Nickel based filler metals are
used for ensuring proper deoxidation of the molten material inside
the weld pool and to avoid any hot shot crack and other mechanical
melleabilty problems, for this titanium, magnesium and other
elements are mixed with the nickel based alloys