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Metallurgy

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Stephensonia

At the most generous POV Enoch Root might provide for it - Alchemy prepares the pre-scientific mind as we know it for quantitative analysis -- leading to metallurgy

Metallurgy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Metallurgy is a domain of Materials Science and of Materials Engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements and their mixtures, which are called alloys.

Most metallic elements are best used in the alloyed form, for example, steel, brass, aluminum alloys. However some nearly 100% pure elements like semiconductors owe their properties to the presence of controlled amount of impurities in them. Metals seem to work as structural materials under loading conditions where sudden failures must be avoided. The metals are stronger than most plastics and have more toughness than most ceramics. Unlike Mechanical Engineers, Metallurgists study the microscopic mechanisms that cause a metal or alloy to behave in the way that it does, i.e. the changes that occur on the atomic level that affect the metal's (or alloy's) macroscopic properties.

Metallurgy is applied to electronic materials, as metals such as aluminum and copper are used in power lines, wires and the tiny electrical connections on computer chips. It is applied to welding and soldering, two techniques for joining metals.

Much effort has been placed on understanding one very important alloy system, Iron - Carbon, better known as steel.

Extractive metallurgy is the practice of separating metals, usually in the form of a metal-oxide, from their ore, and refining them into a pure metal. In order to convert a metal-oxide to a metal, the metal oxide must be reduced either chemically or electrolytically.

Timeline of materials technology

  • 3rd millennium BCE - Copper metallurgy is invented and copper is used for ornamentation
  • 2nd millennium BCE - Bronze is used for weapons and armor
  • 1st millennium BCE - Pewter beginning to be used in China and Egypt
  • 16th century BCE - The Hittites develop crude iron metallurgy
  • 13th century BCE - Invention of steel when iron and charcoal are combined properly
  • 10th century BCE - Glass production begins in Greece and Syria
  • 50s BCE - Glassblowing techniques flourish in Phoenicia
  • 20s BCE - Roman architect Vitruvius describes low-water-content method for mixing concrete.
  • 700s - Porcelain is invented in China
  • 1450s - Crystallo, a clear soda-based glass is invented by Angelo Barovier
  • 1590 - Glass lenses are developed in Netherlands and used for the first time in microscopes and telescopes.
  • 1738 - William Champion patents a process for the production of metallic zinc by distillation from calamine and charcoal.
  • 1779 - Bry Higgins issued a patent for hydraulic cement (stucco) for use as an exterior plaster.
  • 1799 - Alessandro Volta makes a Copper / Zinc acid battery
  • 1821 - Thomas Johann Seebeck invents the thermocouple
  • 1824 - Patent issued to Joseph Aspin for portland cement
  • 1825 - Hans Christian Orsted produces metallic aluminum
  • 1839 - Charles Goodyear invents Vulcanization|vulcanized rubber
  • 1839 - Jacques Daguerre and William Fox Talbot invent silver-based photographic processes
  • 1855 - Bessemer process for mass production of steel patented
  • 1861 - James Clerk Maxwell demonstrates color photography
  • 1883 - Charles Fritts makes the first solar cells using selenium wafers
  • 1902 - August Verneuil develops a process for making synthetic Ruby (gemstone)|rubies.
  • 1909 - Leo Baekeland presents the Bakelite hard thermosetting plastic
  • 1911 - Superconductivity discovered
  • 1916 - Jan Czochralski invents a method for growing single crystals of metals
  • 1924 - Corning scientists invent Pyrex, a glass with a very low thermal expansion coefficient.
  • 1931 - Julius Nieuwland develops the synthetic rubber called neoprene
  • 1931 - Wallace Carothers develops nylon
  • 1938 - Roy Plunkett discovers the process for making poly-tetrafluoroethylene, better known as teflon
  • 1947 - First germanium Transistor invented.
  • 1947 - First commercial application of a piezoelectric ceramic: barium titanate used as a phonoigraph needle.
  • 1951 - Individual atoms seen for the first time using the Field ion microscope
  • 1953 - Karl Ziegler discovers metallic catalysts which greatly improve the strength of polyethylene polymers
  • 1954 - 6% efficiency silicon solar cells made at Bell Laboratories
  • 1959 - Pilkington Brothers patent the float glass process
  • 1962 - SQUID superconducting quantum interference device invented
  • 1968 - Liquid crystal display developed by RCA
  • 1970 - Silica optical fibers grown by Corning