Robert Johnson Materials Science Laboratory Report #1 Selection of a Piping Material for a Corrosive Environment

Introduction I have been hired by Kaufmann Enterprises tasked with providing a recommendation of the best material to be used for piping a reactor vessel that will operate at 525C. Kaufmann Enterprises has also asked me to provide recommendations as to how this piping should be added to the vessel. The reactor itself will be constructed out of a special stainless steel. I have been supplied five potential materials for piping: Brass, bronze, copper, aluminum, and stainless steel. Each of these materials has different characteristics and costs associated with them. I have performed an experiment in order to determine which of these options will be most effective. The main goal of this experiment was to determine the coefficients of linear expansion for each material. My lab partner (Austin Kleinmeyer) and I conducted this experiment on February 21, 2013. The experiment was performed in the Seamans Center located in Iowa City, Iowa. Background The materials being tested in this lab are brass, bronze, aluminum, and stainless steel. Each of these materials has a theoretical coefficient of thermal expansion. The equation for the coefficient of thermal expansion is given below:

In this equation, is equal to the coefficient of thermal expansion, L is equal to the change in length of the member, Lo is equal to the original length of the member, and T is equal to the change in temperature of the member. The coefficient of linear expansion is important because it governs what material is best for a certain application. It essentially tells you how much a materials length will change when subjected to a change in temperature. In engineering design, if you want to use a material that wont expand during temperature changes (ex. Change of seasons), then you will want that material to have a low coefficient of linear expansion. In the engineering field, sometimes it is desirable to combine two different materials in order to obtain a certain result. In this case, it is sometimes useful to combine materials to obtain different coefficients of linear expansion. For example, sometimes it is desirable to combine two materials with similar coefficients of linear expansion. If one wants to have characteristics of two different materials in one alloy, but would like to retain a certain coefficient of linear expansion, then one would want those two materials to have similar coefficients of linear expansion. On the other hand, if one would like characteristics of two different metals in one alloy, but would like a different coefficient of linear expansion, then one would want the two materials to have not similar coefficients of linear expansion. The main goal of this lab was to measure the coefficient of thermal expansion for each of the said materials. The theoretical coefficients of linear expansion according to www.engineeringtoolbox.com are located on the next page.

Material Aluminum Brass Copper Stainless Steel

5.40E-06 1.87E-05 1.66E-05

Table 1: Theoretical coefficients of linear expansion Experimental Methods In this experiment, the main goal was to measure the coefficients of linear expansion for each material. This was done using a very methodical process. Below is an outline of the process. Each step will be described in detail below the outline. 1. Measure initial length of material. 2. Place material inside of heat exchanger.

3. Apply water to material within heat exchanger. Apply for approximately one minute. 4. Remove water from heat exchanger and connect steam generator. 5. Carefully monitor the micrometer until the material has stopped expanding. Record change in length. 6. Remove steam connection and material from the heat exchanger. 7. Repeat with next material. Before the process can be described in detail, it is important to define each of the pieces of equipment used in this experiment. The first piece of equipment used is the heat exchanger. The heat exchanger is an apparatus which houses a material while heat is applied to it. In this

case, heat is applied through the use of steam. The second piece of equipment used is the micrometer. A micrometer measures change in length. In this case, the rod will be changing in length, and the micrometer will measure that change. The third piece of equipment used in this lab will be the steam generator. The steam generator produces steam through the heating of water. This steam is transferred to the heat exchanger through the use of a tube. The equipment used can be seen in the figures below.

Figure 1: Steam Generator

Figure 2: Heat Exchanger

Figure 3: Micrometer

Now that the equipment has been defined, the process can be described in detail. In step 1, the initial length of the material was measured. This was done using a meter stick. Once the material was measured, the results were recorded as Lo. In step 2, the material was placed inside of the heat exchanger. While one group member held up the heat exchanger at an angle, the other group member would carefully insert the material. In step 3, water was applied to the material. First, a water line was connected from the sink nozzle to the heat exchanger. The water handle was turned on letting water freely flow in the heat exchanger. This water was applied for one minute. In step 4, the water line was disconnected and the steam generator tube was connected. The tube running from the generator was connected to the heat exchanger via the same opening that the water was connected. In step 5, the micrometer was carefully monitored until the needle in the gauge stopped moving. This indicated that the material has stopped expanding. The value that the micrometer read was recorded and was labeled L.