Solid alloys
The resistance to thermal transfer at ambient temperatures can be considered to be
made up of two contributions, R
el
and R
lat
, the resistances associated with
electronic and phonon (or lattice) heat transfer. The overall thermal conductivity
(k
eff
) is dependent upon the microstructure; in modelling the thermal conductivity
it is customary to derive values for the microstructure corresponding to the
minimum resistance for the alloy (or maximum conductivity). There are few
models for alloys and these have mostly been directed to the estimation of thermal
conductivities of specific families of commercial alloys, e.g. steels, Ni-based
superalloys, etc. It was noted that for individual families of alloys (e.g. steels) the
thermal conductivity at higher temperatures (e.g. >1100K in steels) seems to be
independent of composition of the alloy (e.g. steels), i.e. the conductivity of all
alloys at a certain temperature has an identical value. Details of reported models
are given in Table 4.9. The uncertainty in the estimated values is around 10%.
Mushy phase alloys
It has been found that thermal conductivity measurements in the mushy phase
are subj ect to considerable error since some of the heat is not conducted but is
used to produce further melting of the alloy. Thus values are best estimated
using the relation, k
eff
f
s
k
s el
(1 ÿ f
s
) k
l el
or R f
s
R
s el
(1 ÿ f
s
) R
l el
.
Slags
Since it is difficult to estimate the mag nitude of the radiation conductivity (k
R
) it
follows that it is difficult to calculate the effective conductivity (k
eff
) of solid
and liquid slags. The radiation conductivity contribution increases markedly at
higher temperatures. However, a correlation of the thermal conductivity data for
liquid slags at the melting point (k
m
) obtained using transient methods (where k
R
might be expected to be small) led to equation 4.48 which was applicable over
the range (NBO/T) 0.5 to 3.5.
11
The (NBO/T) can be calculated from the
chemical composition (see Appendix A)
(1/k
m
) 0.7 0.66 (NBO/T) mK W
ÿ1
(4.48)
Thus the thermal conductivity increases with increasing polymerisation.
4.7.6 Surface tension
The principal difficulties encountered in modelling surface tensions are:
1. Surface active elements (even when present at ppm levels) can have a
dramatic effect on the surface tension () and (d/dT) (this is an especial
problem with O, S, Se, Te in metals and alloys).
Measurement and estimation of physical properties of metals 163