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Liquid and Solid Metal Embrittlement

  • Chapter
Atomistics of Fracture

Abstract

Low melting metals can interact with metallic substrates in several distinct ways that lead to premature fracture or surface degradation. The most spectacular, and widely studied, manifestation of metal-induced embrittlement (MIE) is the sudden fracture of stressed metals with little or no apparent inter-diffusion or chemical interaction. In this classical form of embrittlement, ductility is minimized at or near the melting point of the metallic surface film, and is then restored at some higher temperature, as shown in Fig. 1 for zinc embrittled by indium (1). Similar embrittlement may be noted when the surface film is solid, but the degree of embrittlement is reduced and then disappears as the temperature falls well below the melting point of the embrittler - 100°C or so in the case of lead on (or in) steel (2). Other manifestations of liquid metal embrittlement are connected with rapid penetration of the environment along grain boundaries (e.g. gallium on aluminum), by preferential chemical reactions (e.g. lithium on iron containing carbon or carbides), and by corrosion, perhaps aided by cavitation, in ferritic steel tubing containing mercury in a thermal gradient. In the latter case, failure of the component may occur either by thinning or ultimate penetration of the wall, or by mass transfer-caused plugging of the tube.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Materials Engineering Department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, 12181, USA

    Norman S. Stoloff

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  1. Norman S. Stoloff
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02139, USA

    R. M. Latanision

  2. Martin Marietta Laboratories, 1450 South Rolling Road, Baltimore, Maryland, 21227, USA

    J. R. Pickens

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© 1983 Plenum Press, New York

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Stoloff, N.S. (1983). Liquid and Solid Metal Embrittlement. In: Latanision, R.M., Pickens, J.R. (eds) Atomistics of Fracture. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3500-9_41

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3500-9_41

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-3502-3

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