1. Although steels are metastable at room temp it takes dry ice temperatures to induce phase change. "Tin pest" disease proceeds slowly at first at 10 centigrade. Im never saw any reference in military journals that Napoleon or his officers attributed loss of buttons as significant.
2. Group 5 and group 6 alloys: bismuth, antimony, arsenic, tellurium, selenium, etc.; accelerate tin pest. Copper, Silver, Cadmium, Indium etc. alloys reduce tin phase change. Copper and Silver as intermetallic compounds Cu3Sn and Ag3Sn. Lead does not not form a solution in solid Tin, so it does not prevent tin phase change. However 50:50 Pb:Sn will leave a Lead matrix behind.
4. Pure Tin was unlikely a button material as it was too soft to hold the coats closed. More likely a Pewter Tin-Antimony-Lead alloy.
4. Russians had a Tin coin few years back. They wrestled with the Tin pest problem.
5. Tin whisker formation is proportional to Tin content of solder. Tin-Lead Solder is usually reflowed which reduces surface stress but Bright Tin plating is not reflowed.
6. Although Lead causes neural issues in young mammals in infinitessimal amounts, Silver is much more toxic to adult humans.
Karen, beta tin (white tin) is stable at room temperature, not metastable. Alpha tin (gray tin) becomes the stable phase below about 56°F. So below 56°F, beta tin is metastable - it is no longer the lowest energy state, but there is still an activation energy associated with the phase transformation.
I think the term you wanted to use is "allotropic," not "metastable."
It's interesting how non-committal Le Couteur is about the historical veracity of the "Napoleon's buttons" story, given that it's the title of her book (although the story itself is actually only mentioned briefly in the introduction).
When people talk about "pure tin" in electronics applications, they mean that it is 97% pure or more. However, I believe this still leaves enough room for alloying additions (antimony, bismuth, or lead) to suppress alpha tin formation.
For 3D printing to make the jump from rapid prototyping to manufacturing, engineers will need to find easier ways to move products from their CAD screens to their printers.
Gigabit and PoE are two networking technologies moving ahead in tandem as industrial users power remote Ethernet devices such as IP security cameras at 1,000 Mbps over existing CAT5 cable.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
To save this item to your list of favorite Design News content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
If you found this interesting or useful, please use the links to the services below to share it with other readers. You will need a free account with each service to share an item via that service.
Tweet This
2 
