THE MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO NICKEL AND ITS APPLICATIONS
June 2009
Volume 24, Number 2
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| Online Invar® & Steel Alloy Game |
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Q: What is an alloy?
Q: What kind of ingredients could a steel alloy have?
Q: What different kinds of steel alloys are there?
Q: What are the different steel alloys used for?
This online game available at: http://nobelprize.org/educational_games/physics/steel/
is a crash course in how to make steel alloys. Alloys are mixtures of substances in which the resulting
material has metallic properties. They are usually produced by melting the mixture of ingredients. Steel,
brass and amalgam are a few examples of alloys. Invar, from the word “invariable”, is a special steel alloy –
used today in toasters and CRT-monitors, for example. In the game you will be given “an order” to make a
special steel product – a different product each time you play. Your mission will be to find the steel alloy
that suits this product best, mix the “ingredients”, and finally, try to place as many molds as possible on a
“steel dough”. If you’re quick at making alloys you could end up on the all-time high score list!
The Invar & Steel Alloys educational game and related reading are based on the 1920 Nobel Prize in
Physics awarded for discovering the steel alloy Invar.
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