Lamellar structure

Last updated April 16, 2019

Lamellar structures or microstructures are composed of fine, alternating layers of different materials in the form of lamellae. They are often observed in cases where a phase transformation front moves quickly, leaving behind two solid products, as in rapid cooling of eutectic (such as solder) or eutectoid (such as pearlite) systems.

In the physical sciences, a phase is a region of space, throughout which all physical properties of a material are essentially uniform. Examples of physical properties include density, index of refraction, magnetization and chemical composition. A simple description is that a phase is a region of material that is chemically uniform, physically distinct, and (often) mechanically separable. In a system consisting of ice and water in a glass jar, the ice cubes are one phase, the water is a second phase, and the humid air is a third phase over the ice and water. The glass of the jar is another separate phase.

Solder metal alloy used to join together metal pieces with higher melting points

Solder is a fusible metal alloy used to create a permanent bond between metal workpieces. The word solder comes from the Middle English word soudur, via Old French solduree and soulder, from the Latin solidare, meaning "to make solid". In fact, solder must first be melted in order to adhere to and connect the pieces together after cooling, which requires that an alloy suitable for use as solder have a lower melting point than the pieces being joined. The solder should also be resistant to oxidative and corrosive effects that would degrade the joint over time. Solder used in making electrical connections also needs to have favorable electrical characteristics.

Pearlite lamellar structure of ferrite and cementite

Pearlite is a two-phased, lamellar structure composed of alternating layers of ferrite and cementite that occurs in some steels and cast irons. During slow cooling of an iron-carbon alloy, pearlite forms by a eutectoid reaction as austenite cools below 727 °C (1,341 °F). Pearlite is a microstructure occurring in many common grades of steels.

Such conditions force phases of different composition to form but allow little time for diffusion to produce those phases' equilibrium compositions. Fine lamellae solve this problem by shortening the diffusion distance between phases, but their high surface energy makes them unstable and prone to break up when annealing allows diffusion to progress. A deeper eutectic or more rapid cooling will result in finer lamellae; as the size of an individual lamellum approaches zero, the system will instead retain its high-temperature structure. Two common cases of this include cooling a liquid to form an amorphous solid, and cooling eutectoid austenite to form martensite.

Diffusion Statistical movement of molecules or atoms from a region of high concentration (or high chemical potential) to a region of low concentration (or low chemical potential)

Diffusion is the net movement of molecules or atoms from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Diffusion is driven by a gradient in chemical potential of the diffusing species.

Surface free energy or interfacial free energy or surface energy, quantifies the disruption of intermolecular bonds that occurs when a surface is created. In the physics of solids, surfaces must be intrinsically less energetically favorable than the bulk of a material, otherwise there would be a driving force for surfaces to be created, removing the bulk of the material. The surface energy may therefore be defined as the excess energy at the surface of a material compared to the bulk, or it is the work required to build an area of a particular surface. Another way to view the surface energy is to relate it to the work required to cut a bulk sample, creating two surfaces.

Annealing, in metallurgy and materials science, is a heat treatment that alters the physical and sometimes chemical properties of a material to increase its ductility and reduce its hardness, making it more workable. It involves heating a material above its recrystallization temperature, maintaining a suitable temperature for a suitable amount of time, and then cooling.

In biology, normal adult bones possess a lamellar structure which may be disrupted by some diseases.^[1]

Related Research Articles

A eutectic system from the Greek "εύ" and "τήξις" is a homogeneous mixture of substances that melts or solidifies at a single temperature that is lower than the melting point of either of the constituents.

Heat treating process of heating something to alter it

Heat treating is a group of industrial and metalworking processes used to alter the physical, and sometimes chemical, properties of a material. The most common application is metallurgical. Heat treatments are also used in the manufacture of many other materials, such as glass. Heat treatment involves the use of heating or chilling, normally to extreme temperatures, to achieve a desired result such as hardening or softening of a material. Heat treatment techniques include annealing, case hardening, precipitation strengthening, tempering, carburizing, normalizing and quenching. It is noteworthy that while the term heat treatment applies only to processes where the heating and cooling are done for the specific purpose of altering properties intentionally, heating and cooling often occur incidentally during other manufacturing processes such as hot forming or welding.

Martensite most commonly refers to a very hard form of steel crystalline structure, but it can also refer to any crystal structure that is formed by diffusionless transformation.

Martensite is named after the German metallurgist Adolf Martens (1850–1914). The term most commonly refers to a very hard form of steel crystalline structure, but can also refer to any crystal structure that is formed by diffusionless transformation. Martensite includes a class of hard minerals that occur as lath- or plate-shaped crystal grains.

Austenite metallic, non-magnetic allotrope of iron or a solid solution of iron, with an alloying element

Austenite, also known as gamma-phase iron (γ-Fe), is a metallic, non-magnetic allotrope of iron or a solid solution of iron, with an alloying element. In plain-carbon steel, austenite exists above the critical eutectoid temperature of 1000 K (727 °C); other alloys of steel have different eutectoid temperatures. The austenite allotrope is named after Sir William Chandler Roberts-Austen (1843–1902); it exists at room temperature in stainless steel.

Bainite is a plate-like microstructure that forms in steels at temperatures of 125–550 °C. First described by E. S. Davenport and Edgar Bain, it is one of the products that may form when austenite is cooled past a temperature where it no longer is thermodynamically stable with respect to ferrite, cementite, or ferrite and cementite. Davenport and Bain originally described the microstructure as being similar in appearance to tempered martensite.

Carbon steel steel in which the main interstitial alloying constituent is carbon

Carbon steel is a steel with carbon content up to 2.1% by weight. The definition of carbon steel from the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) states:

Quenching rapid cooling of a workpiece to obtain certain material properties

In materials science, quenching is the rapid cooling of a workpiece in water, oil or air to obtain certain material properties. A type of heat treating, quenching prevents undesired low-temperature processes, such as phase transformations, from occurring. It does this by reducing the window of time during which these undesired reactions are both thermodynamically favorable, and kinetically accessible; for instance, quenching can reduce the crystal grain size of both metallic and plastic materials, increasing their hardness.

Lamellar corpuscles are one of the four major types of mechanoreceptor cell in glabrous (hairless) mammalian skin. They are nerve endings in the skin responsible for sensitivity to vibration and pressure. They respond only to sudden disturbances and are especially sensitive to vibration. The vibrational role may be used to detect surface texture, e.g., rough vs. smooth. Lamellar corpuscles are also found in the pancreas, where they detect vibration and possibly very low frequency sounds. Lamellar corpuscles act as very rapidly adapting mechanoreceptors. Groups of corpuscles respond to pressure changes, e.g. on grasping or releasing an object.

Widmanstätten pattern Crystal patterns found in some meteorites

Widmanstätten patterns, more correctly known as Thomson structures, are figures of long nickel-iron crystals, found in the octahedrite iron meteorites and some pallasites. They consist of a fine interleaving of kamacite and taenite bands or ribbons called lamellae. Commonly, in gaps between the lamellae, a fine-grained mixture of kamacite and taenite called plessite can be found. Widmanstätten patterns describe features in modern steels, titanium and zirconium alloys.

Laminitis is a disease that affects the feet of ungulates and is found mostly in horses and cattle. Clinical signs include foot tenderness progressing to inability to walk, increased digital pulses, and increased temperature in the hooves. Severe cases with outwardly visible clinical signs are known by the colloquial term founder, and progression of the disease will lead to perforation of the coffin bone through the sole of the hoof or being unable to stand up requiring euthanasia.

A lamella is a small plate or flake, from the Latin, and may also be used to refer to collections of fine sheets of material held adjacent to one another, in a gill-shaped structure, often with fluid in between though sometimes simply a set of 'welded' plates. The term is used in biological and engineering contexts, such as filters and heat exchangers. The microscopic structures in bone and nacre are lamellae in the materials science sense of the word.

A solid solution is a solid-state solution of one or more solutes in a solvent. Such a multi-component system is considered a solution rather than a compound when the crystal structure of the solvent remains unchanged by addition of the solutes, and when the chemical components remain in a single homogeneous phase. This often happens when the two elements involved are close together on the periodic table; conversely, a chemical compound generally results when two metals involved are not near each other on the periodic table.

In geology, igneous differentiation, or magmatic differentiation, is an umbrella term for the various processes by which magmas undergo bulk chemical change during the partial melting process, cooling, emplacement, or eruption.

A lamella in biology refers to a thin layer, membrane, or plate of tissue. This is a very broad definition, and can refer to many different structures. Any thin layer of organic tissue can be called a lamella and there is a wide array of functions an individual layer can serve. For example, an intercellular lipid lamella is formed when lamellar disks fuse together to form a lamellar sheet. It is believed that these disks are formed from vesicles, giving the lamellar sheet a lipid bilayer that plays a role in water diffusion.

Symplectite material texture: a micrometre-scale or submicrometre-scale intergrowth of two or more crystals

A symplectite is a material texture: a micrometre-scale or submicrometre-scale intergrowth of two or more crystals. Symplectites form from the breakdown of unstable phases, and may be composed of minerals, ceramics, or metals. Fundamentally, their formation is the result of slow grain-boundary diffusion relative to interface propagation rate.

Eutectic bonding, also referred to as eutectic soldering, describes a wafer bonding technique with an intermediate metal layer that can produce a eutectic system. Those eutectic metals are alloys that transform directly from solid to liquid state, or vice versa from liquid to solid state, at a specific composition and temperature without passing a two-phase equilibrium, i.e. liquid and solid state. The fact that the eutectic temperature can be much lower than the melting temperature of the two or more pure elements can be important in eutectic bonding.

The elements bismuth and indium have relatively low melting points when compared to other metals, and their alloy bismuth–indium (Bi–In) is classified as a fusible alloy. It has a melting point lower than the eutectic point of the tin–lead alloy. The most common application of the Bi-In alloy is as a low temperature solder, which can also contain, besides bismuth and indium, lead, cadmium and tin.

References

↑ "Histology of Bone" . Retrieved 26 November 2012.

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[1] "Histology of Bone" . Retrieved 26 November 2012.