La aleación especial de magnesio

VALERI CONSULENZA INDUSTRIALE
d i Gu a l t i e ro A. N. Va l e r i
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SPECIAL MAGNESIUM ALLOYS:

ANEW FRONTIER

Symposium “Magnesium and Motorsport”, Modena, october 14, 2009 Gualtiero A.N. Valeri – Valeri consulenza Industriale, Lugano
President of Montevenda Engineering International Association, Foundation for Development of Ethical Engineering, Lugano

When we speak of “special alloy of magnesium” as a new frontier, we are in fact, rather than face a new field at all, to trace acritical 90-year history of the magnesium alloys. In these 90 years have in fact explored in a systematic way not all, but a large number of possibilities alligator magnesium metal with elements common both with the most exotic, often fascinating results obtained in terms of mechanical strength, resistance corrosion and lightness. But often the difficulty of finding some metal elements, or their cost,or their difficulty in handling, or even the difficulty of them to a sufficient degree of purity and, to that degree, to keep the league during its manufacture, have fact is that these leagues, perhaps even in many cases the subject of publications and patents, have ended up in oblivion. Or, in other cases, their application has been limited to particular sectors such as aerospace or defense, sotoday there are perhaps hints so fast or further discussion in the literature, but lack of practical uses. It is however also be noted that for a certain period of time, magnesium alloys and in particular the ultra-light alloys ended up in oblivion for the growing competition of composite materials, and other alloys, however, appear that the cause of poor application practice has been driven bystrategic reasons, since the fall of the published studies on coincides with the period of the Cold War, as the case of alloys, magnesium-lithium alloys remarkably light (d = 1.3 kg/dm3) and with excellent mechanical properties especially when hot. This discontinuity in the development are still a recurring in the history of technologies; in different sectors we can observe the same phenomenon inthe field of “synthetic biofuels” or in the chemical-pharmacology of natural substances: a period of intensive research and development, a more or less long period of neglect, and thus a rediscovery.

Gualtiero A.N. Valeri “Special Magnesium Alloys: a New Frontier”, Modena, 14/10/2009

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Certainly, the field of magnesium alloys, played a lot against the great reactivity of metal and someof its alloying elements, the cost and difficult availability of some of these, and not a very great interest to go beyond a certain limit in lighten in some mechanical components. There are other factors that have played against, of course: for example, speaking of lanthanides, until not long ago, their analytical determination was the exclusive domain of a few highly specialized laboratories. Andthe fact of not being able to assess accurately the composition of an alloy obtained (especially since some of its components tend to get lost in part due to oxidation) did not play very much in favor of its current industrial application. Today also, we are in, on the one hand, many technological difficulties are overcome, or exceeded, and secondly that it is increasingly felt need to reduce theweight of vehicles and aircraft for reasons of limiting energy consumption and emissions into the atmosphere, and the other to ensure safety and durability of machines. And so many roads traveled in the past and then abandoned for various reasons, can and must be taken in the light of new needs and technologies, of course, redesigned processes and formulations in the light of knowledge and...