Especially for METE'

[LRB]

My apoligies if this is a stupid question. It has been my understanding that steel is a crystaline structure rather than molecular. I have lately been informed that crystals themselves are made of molecules. Could you please explain this in a manner that a common dummy such as myself might understand. Thankyou in advance.

 

[mete]

Molecules are found in things like plastics and have molecular bonding. Metals have metallic bonding. Metals consist of ; atoms , groups of atoms form crystals, groups of crystals form grains .The metallic elements form crystal shapes such as cubic or hexagonal. Ferrite is body centered cubic [a cube with an atom at each corner and one in the center of the cube] ,austenite is face centered cubic [an atom at each corner an one at the center of each face of the cube] .Martensite is body centered tetragonal [an elongated cube] with carbon atoms along the edges of the cube. Hexagonal crystals are found in metals such as zinc, titanium. We take annealed steel [BCC] heat it above the transition temperature which converts it to austenite [FCC] an on quenching this converts to martensite [BCT] .We can , through x-ray diffraction techniques , measure the size of the crystals and their shapes .

 

[LRB]

Thankyou sir. Your explanation is pretty much as I understood things to be, but I was not enough sure of my knowledge to make an educated statement on the matter. Thanks again.

 

[Tommegow]

Mete
You need to write "An Idiot's Guide To Metallurgy" You obviously know the material well and have the communication skills to explain it to us "idiots"
Maybe Metallurgy for Bladesmith's (a special class of idiots) dealing with just steel. Anyway thank you very much for your willingness to spend your time explaining stuff for us!!!

 

[CanDo]

Aha! Finally, a real world application for all that time spent in high-school chemistry.