Michael Talks Metal: Recent Episodes

Michael

Can't seem to find easy to consume information about steel, aluminum and aerospace metals? You have come to the right place. Here we discuss all topics that surround metal. Specific grades, processes like heat treating and grinding plus much more!

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Today's topic is Monel alloy K-500 when produced by Special Metals Corporation or simply alloy 500 in a generic form by other producing mills. The  UNS designation for the chemical composition is  N05500. K-500 offers the corrosion resistance of alloy 400 but with greater strength and hardness.

For the full transcript, click here:  

https://www.michlinmetals.com/monel-k-500-alloy-500-round-bar-ams-4676-plate-sheet-qq-n-286/ 

A solid solution of nickel and copper with additions of aluminum and titanium, K - 500 can be strengthened by heat treatment. Precipitation (aka aging) provides the increased strength. Cold work can further enhance strength and hardness.  Typical of all the Monel alloys it has excellent corrosion resistance and it is used where higher strength and hardness is also required.

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Today's topic is Monel alloy 405 when produced by Special Metals Corporation or simply alloy 405 in a generic form by other producing mills.  UNS designation for the chemical composition is  N04405. 

For the full transcript, click here: 

https://www.michlinmetals.com/monel-405-round-bar-ams-4674-ams-7234/ 

A solid solution of nickel and copper, it cannot be strengthened by heat treatment.  Cold work can increase strength as in other commercial alloys. Typical of all the Monel alloys, it has an excellent combination of strength, toughness, and ease of fabrication.  A small sulfur addition increases the machinability of 405 as compared to alloy 400 for screw machine applications.  In other applications it would offer no advantage over alloy 400.  Excellent salt water corrosion performance leads to many marine applications such as components of valves, pumps, shafts, fixtures, fasteners, and fittings where the faster machining is important.

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Today's topic is Monel alloy 400 when produced by Special Metals Corporation or simply alloy 400 in a generic form by other producing mills.  UNS designation for the chemical composition is  N04400.

Full Transcript:

https://www.michlinmetals.com/monel-400-ams-4675-ams-4544-ams-4574-qq-n-281/ 

A solid solution of nickel and copper, it cannot be strengthened by heat treatment.  Cold work can increase strength as in other commercial alloys. Typical of all the Monel alloys,it has an excellent combination of strength, toughness, and ease of fabrication.  Excellent salt water corrosion performance leads to many marine applications such as valves, pumps, propellers, shafts, fixtures, fasteners, and fittings.

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Today we will be taking a look at one of the more popular of the Nickel alloys known as Inconel 625 when produced by Special Metals Corporation or just "alloy 625" when produced by other manufacturers. 

Access the full transcript here: 

https://www.michlinmetals.com/inconel-625-round-bar-ams-5666-sheet-plate-ams-5599-5869-pipe-ams-5581/ 

The UNS chemical composition designation is N06625 identifies the alloy regardless of the producing mill.  This alloy is a solid solution of its elements and cannot be strengthened by heat treatment. Cold working will result in increased strength. Heat treatment can remove any undesirable effects of cold work.  All the common commercial Nickel alloys are used in applications involving elevated temperatures, corrosion , or environments with both.  Alloy 625 has enhanced corrosion protection due to its Chromium, Molybdenum, and Columbium content  It has excellent seawater corrosion performance. Chemical processing equipment relies on the corrosion performance over a wide range of environments.

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Today we are taking a deeper dive into the subdivisions of the T tempers before we move on to talking about specific alloys in the 2xxx, 6xxx, and 7xxx series.  Common examples of alloy and temper....  2011-T3, 2024 -T4, 2024-T351, 7075-T6, 7075 - T73511...lots of numbers here.  What does it all mean?  All the heat treatable alloys are strengthened by precipitation hardening. Cold working can supplement the heat treatment in achieving the required properties as shown in some tempers. Cold work that does not affect the properties is not prohibited in other tempers.

Full Transcript:

https://www.michlinmetals.com/introduction-to-aluminum-the-heat-treated-tempers-7075-t7351-6061-t6-2024-t351/

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Today we will be taking a look at one of the more popular of the Nickel alloys known as Inconel 600 when produced by Special Metals Corporation or just “alloy 600” when produced by anyone else like Carpenter Technology. The UNS chemical composition designation is N06600

This alloy is a solid solution of its elements and cannot be strengthened by heat treatment. Cold working will result in increased strength. Heat treatment can remove any undesirable effects of cold work.

Nickel alloys are used in applications involving elevated temperatures, corrosion , or both. Chemical processing equipment relies on the corrosion performance over a wide range of environments.

Commercial applications involve furnace components and fixtures requiring strength and oxidation resistance at temperatures up to 2000 degrees F. For more info check out the site at: 

https://www.michlinmetals.com/inconel-600-alloy-600-info-ams-5665-5687-5540-5580/

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Ok, so we’re back again to talk about steel. If you’ve seen any of the previous videos and like them, consider hitting that little mmi button and subscribing. If you’re new and this is your first video, thank you for tuning in. Or, if you’re back for more, thank you too. Super grateful you are watching. Please like the video and if you have any questions comment below, and again, don’t forget to subscribe, right here.

This video is our second on PH stainless steels. If you have not seen the first do so now. You can find it here.

So, you either have seen the first video covering the basics or you decided you know all that stuff already, so we can move on. Regardless, if you are watching now, you have the basics of the martensitic PH types covered. Keep watching for more info!

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This video will introduce you to a group of  corrosion and high temperature alloys called "Hastelloys". For the full transcript click here: https://www.michlinmetals.com/hastelloy-alloys-c22-c263-c276-hastelloy-x/Hastelloy is a trademark of Haynes International and only products they produce can carry the name "Hastelloy". Among the more popular are the Hastelloys designated  C-22, C-22HS,C-263, C-276, and X.  Hastelloy C-263 and Hastelloy  X are high temperature alloys used in applications like jet and rocket engine components. These other "C" alloys are used in applications more for their corrosion performance in severe service environments. These alloys are mainly composed of Nickel, Chromium, and Molybdenum.

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Today our video is about one of the Iron-Nickel alloys that exhibit  low thermal expansion characteristics as compared to many other metal alloys. For more info make sure to check the link below for the transcript: https://www.michlinmetals.com/invar-36-nickel-alloy-36-invar-36-supplier/ Most commonly known as Invar 36  when produced by Carpenter technology, its UNS designation is K93601.  Free cutting Invar 36  has UNS designations K93050. The rate  of thermal expansion is roughly one tenth that of carbon steels at temperatures up to 400 deg. F  Metals typically expand with rising temperature  and conversely shrink with decreasing temperatures.  The rate at which this occurs is called the Coefficient of Thermal Expansion or  "CTE". It  typically varies with temperature in a non-linear manner.  To make things easier to use; Metallurgists give us the Mean CTE for a specific range of temperature. With this information we can either compare materials or we can calculate the change in dimension that would occur with a specific change of temperature.

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Our topic for today is another in our series on precipitation hardening types of stainless steel 17-4.  For more info on 17-4 visit our website at:  https://www.michlinmetals.com/metal/17-4-stainless-steel/ The AISI designation is Type 630 and the UNS designation for the chemical composition of this alloy is UNS S17400.  Capable of high strength and toughness after heat treatment and with the corrosion and oxidation resistance typical of stainless steels, 17-4 is one of the most common and commercially important of the PH stainless alloys.  It finds applications in a wide range of industries from aircraft and aerospace to chemical and petrochemical.  For aerospace applications, the alloy is aircraft quality where the cleanliness requirements of AMS 2301 are applicable or premium aircraft quality Consumable Electrode Melted (CEM) to AMS 2300.

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In this video we discuss Nitrogen Strengthened Austenitic and Duplex Stainless Steels. For the full transcript, click here: https://www.michlinmetals.com/nitrogen-strengthened-austenitic-and-duplex-stainless-steels/ This is the last of our series on the basics of the various types within the family of alloys classified as “stainless steels“. Today we’ll be discussing Nitrogen Strengthened Austenitic and Duplex Stainless Steels  First up is a category that has the austenitic type structure but  these alloys have higher strengths achieved by using Nitrogen and higher levels of Manganese in the chemistry. All these types are non-magnetic. Various grades were developed and made popular with the proprietary name”Nitronic”.  Three of the most popular are Nitronic 40, Nitronic 50 and Nitronic 60.  All have strengths nearly double those of the 300 series in the annealed condition.     Nitronic 40 (aka 21-6-9)  is made in two  variations depending on the carbon content. UNS S21900 has .point 08 % maximum carbon and UNS S21904 is restricted to .point 04 maximum carbon. In ASTM standards, the grades are designated as XM-10 and XM-11. AMS 5656 requires the low carbon version.

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Today we have the 6xxx series alloys where the primary alloying elements are magnesium and silicon. For the full transcript, click here:  https://www.michlinmetals.com/6000-series-aluminum-6061-t6-6063-t5-6262-t9/ If you did not see our earlier video on the heat treated temper designations or for a review....click here now.  The Aluminum Association, the American industry organization that has established standards uses a comparative rating system for various properties  of aluminum alloys.  An A rating is the most favorable and E is the least.  Again these are comparisons within aluminum alloys. An alloy and temper rated "A" is superior to one rated "B" and so on.  Selection of alloy and temper is best left to the design engineers.  The popular alloys for our video are 6061, 6063, and 6262.

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In this video we introduce Aluminum into the mix of material which we discuss. For the full transcript click here: https://www.michlinmetals.com/introduction-to-wrought-aluminum-alloys-2024-6061-7075/Aluminum weighs about point 1 pound per cubic inch while iron is almost three times as much.   Aluminum has even more going for it, corrosion resistant in many environments and also pretty easy to fabricate.  If you look around you can probably identify something made with  Aluminum.   To name a few...Cell phone and computer components..... cookware....... automotive parts and fancy wheels....... office window frames.... and a whole lot of that  airplane overhead.

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Todays' video introduces you to the family of alloys that carry the Inconel name. For the full transcript click here: https://www.michlinmetals.com/inconel-inconel-600-inconel-625-inconel-718-inconel-x-750/Inconel is a trade name of Special Metals Corporation. Other metal producers of generic material cannot use the Inconel trademark. Five of the more popular of the Inconel family are Inconel Alloy 600,  601, 625, 718, and X-750.  The first three are not hardenable by heat treatment.  The others are grades that can be strengthened by " Precipitation Hardening" heat treatment.  Nickel and Chromium are the major elements of these alloys and they have strength, corrosion and oxidation resistance over a wide range of temperature and environments.  This family of alloys finds numerous uses in chemical processing equipment as well as many high temperature applications requiring resistance to oxidation such as furnace fixtures and retorts. Inconel alloys are found in aerospace applications including jet and rocket engine components.

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Topic for this video is a category of alloy steels that achieve very high strength levels with a simple heat treatment after the manufacture of the part. For the full transcript, click here: https://www.michlinmetals.com/maraging-steels-maraging-200-maraging-250-maraging-300/ These alloys are called "Maraging" steels. MAR from martensite and AGEING for how they develop  strength.   Conventional steel alloys  like 4340 ,that can achieve comparable strength levels have a minimum carbon content of point 4 % and require a high temperature austenitizing step followed by rapid quenching and then a final tempering to develop their strength. Needless to say, this process can be very troublesome in many part configurations. With these carbon levels any welding requirement can be very problematic.

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So today we're talking about Incoloy. Our topic covers four of the most popular of the series of Incoloy alloys and some other alloys of similar chemical compositions and applications. For the full transcript click here: https://www.michlinmetals.com/incoloy-alloys-incoloy-800-incoloy-825-incoloy-925/Incoloy is a trade name of Special Metals Inc and generic versions can not carry the Incoloy name.  This group is higher in Nickel than the stainless family and alloyed with enough Cr and other elements so that iron makes up less than half of the composition.

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We are using English units of measure (UOM) in our examples, but metric units are also often seen. Full Transcript: https://www.michlinmetals.com/steel-descriptions-how-to-decode-steel-acronyms/  Today our example description is 2 INCH RD 4140 CF ANN BAR ...... CF for Cold Finished instead of last weeks' HR for hot rolled. All steel products are Hot Rolled or Hot Finished prior to being Cold Finished.  Cold finished is a generic term that includes the following more specific terms: CR for Cold Rolled CD for Cold Drawn G&P for Ground and Polished T&P for Turned and Polished TG&P for Turned, Ground and Polished

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This is Part 2 on Nickel Alloys. For the full transcript click here: https://www.michlinmetals.com/nickel-alloys-part-2-monel-400-monel-r-405-monel-k-500/ In our second part we are going to talk about the family of three alloys of  nickel and copper which are Monel 400 – Monel R-405 – Monel K-500……. compositions are roughly two thirds Nickel and one third Copper……. These elements form a solid solution with each other.. a stable mixture that cannot be made stronger by heat treatment.  It takes certain additional elements to make an alloy strengthened by heat treatment.  These three alloys are named  Monel 400, Monel R- 405 and Monel K-500 when produced by Special Metals Corporation.  Generic versions cannot carry the “Monel” name.

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Today's topic is  focused  on wrought Nickel metal ....things commercially available as bars, forgings, tubing, and plate products.  For the full transcript click here: https://www.michlinmetals.com/nickel-200-nickel-alloys/ Commercially pure Nickel 200 or generic alloy 200 has a UNS  (Unified Numbering System) chemistry designation UNS N02200.  It contains a minimum of 99.0% Nickel (plus cobalt) with other elements restricted carbon to a MAXIMUM   of point 15 % ; iron to point 40 %; copper  to point 25%; manganese to point 35%; silicon to point 35; and sulfur to point 01%.  Of note here is that we said that there can be some cobalt included in the required minimum percentage of nickel. Because they are found together in the ores they are produced from;  there is higher cost in separating the two elements to greater degrees.  Metallurgically similar in many ways, allowing "nickel plus cobalt" when possible is a matter of cost. Cobalt would be in the  restricted elements if it were an issue in the performance of the alloy. The lower a cobalt content in a nickel alloy  the  higher the cost of the raw materials to produce it. 

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the stainless heat and corrosion resisting steels we discussed earlier. We saw that increasing other elements like nickel, chromium, and molybdenum in a steel boosted the corrosion and temperature performance.  So at some point, metallurgists no longer consider the alloy an iron based  "steel".

And with that said ....we introduce you to Nickel  and Cobalt  alloys.....

We will divide these solely by the Unified Numbering System (UNS) chemistry category. The UNS system is a combined effort of SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) and ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials). Both of those differ from the Aerospace Material Specifications (AMS Specs).

Nickel and Nickel alloys have a UNS chemical composition designation of  N followed by five numbers and the Cobalt alloys R followed by five numbers.

Some proprietary types may not have been assigned a UNS designation.

The element that we consider to be the "base" just means that it  is  the major alloying element in that particular metal alloy. Often these alloys contain both nickel and cobalt in addition to other elements.  The Nickel alloys more nickel than Cobalt and in Cobalt alloys more cobalt than nickel.

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PH is shorthand for "Precipitation Hardening" which is a heat treatment that is a bit different from that of the conventional heat treatment of the Martensitic types.

High strength, excellent corrosion performance, and a simplified heat treatment process are advantages of the PH types as compared to the conventional  martensitic types.

An initial "solution treatment" at high temperature .....typically 1900 degrees F....  assures that all the alloy elements needed for the hardening reaction are uniformly distributed within the metal structure. At these temperatures the structure is austenitic. From this temperature, the alloy is cooled at a rate that retains the distribution of the hardening elements in solution.

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In this video we cover the balance of the martensitic grades we didn't discuss in part 1. We cover the following types of 400 stainless steel: 410, 414, 418 (Greek Ascoloy), 420, 422, 431, 440 A, 440 B and 440 C. We also discuss these metals and their applications as well as how they perform after heat treatment.

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In this video we try to start answering the question: What is Martensitic Stainless Steel? How does Martensitic Stainless Steel differ from other types of stainless steel like austenitic and ferritic types? In this video we describe the different aspects of Martensitic Stainless Steel and dive into various grade or type descriptions. For instance, we discuss 403, 410, 416 in this video. Stay tuned for the next part in the Martensitic Stainless Steel!

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In this video I discuss the different types of Ferritic Stainless Steels. 409, 430 F, 430 F Se, 434, 436, 442 and 446. All are part of the 400 series of stainless steel. Ferritic grades are relatively low strength among the stainless steels and are not as easily welded or formed as the Austenitic types.

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This podcast is focused on the most commercially popular Austenitic types. For Example, in this video we will discuss, 303, 303S, 303Se, 304, 304L, 316, 317 and 317L.

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Introduction to types of stainless steels and their characteristics. Type 200, 300, 400, PH and Duplex Stainless Steels are all discussed. This is video 1 in a series about metal for people who want to learn about metallurgy more easily! For any questions or for more information, please check out michlinmetals.com.