Alloys are used rather than pure metals in electrical heating devices since they have low electrical conductivity and also a low melting point. Usually the alloys don't have a single melting point; they have a range of melting points. The temperature at which melting begins is called the SOLIDUS and the temperature at which melting is complete is called the LIQUIDUS.
Student
Chat with our AI personalities
Alloys are useful improvement over pure metals because they tend to be stronger.
Alloys are made from a mixture of metals that are usually melted together. In this way brass, pewter, bronze are made. An amalgam which is also an alloy, is easier to make because mercury is a liquid at room temperature and metals dissolve in it.
Alloys are sometimes more useful than pure metals because alloys are stronger - or tougher (toughness is resistance to fracture). Pure metals tend to be softer than alloys and therefore tend to get dented, scratched, or broken/fractured more easily. Alloys are often lower cost than pure metals but not necessarily so. As an example, stainless steel is more expensive than pure iron.
Alloying metals make them stronger because in pure metals all the atoms are the same size and ordered but when another element is added then it makes the atoms irregular making the layers harder to shift, making it stronger.An alloy is a mixture of two elements, one of which is a metal. Alloys often have properties that are different to the metals they contain. This makes them more useful than the pure metals alone. For example, alloys are often harder than the metal they contain.Alloys contain atoms of different sizes, which distorts the regular arrangements of atoms. This makes it more difficult for the layers to slide over each other, so alloys are harder than the pure metal.
Alloys are obtained by melting the base metal with the alloying components.