Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: thedoc on 20/02/2012 11:33:45

Title: How can metals be cast with high precision?
Post by: thedoc on 20/02/2012 11:33:45
If you've been on a flight recently, then there's a very high likelihood that you were carried aloft by a jet engine.  These work by compressing air and squirting in fuel which then burns, expands, and generates thrust.  But this also creates one of the harshest imaginable environments inside the engine.  To withstand this takes specialist superalloy components which are produced with a very high precision and to find out how they're being made, Ben Valsler has been to the casting facility of one of the world’s top jet engine manufactures, Rolls Royce in Derby...
 Read a transcript of the interview by clicking here (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/interviews/interview/1715/)

or [chapter podcast=3093 track=11.05.29/Naked_Scientists_Show_11.05.29_8568.mp3](https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenakedscientists.com%2FHTML%2Ftypo3conf%2Fext%2Fnaksci_podcast%2Fgnome-settings-sound.gif&hash=f2b0d108dc173aeaa367f8db2e2171bd) Listen to it now[/chapter] or [download as MP3] (http://nakeddiscovery.com/downloads/split_individual/11.05.29/Naked_Scientists_Show_11.05.29_8568.mp3)
Title: None
Post by: steve frost on 17/03/2015 19:46:25
do they rust considering they are made of steel
Title: None
Post by: Doug on 07/05/2015 13:24:04
They said the blades are made of superalloy, which is basically nickel, cobalt and chromium (plus other stuff) but no iron, so they don't 'rust'.  That said, superalloys at service temperatures do oxidize (burn) and therefore the trick is to make them oxidize slowly enough to be useful for 5 million miles or so.  This is done with coatings that create oxide scales to seal the surface.