 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Cooling curve" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(December 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Acooling curve is a linegraph that represents the change ofphase ofmatter, typically from a gas to a solid or a liquid to a solid. Theindependent variable (X-axis) is time and thedependent variable (Y-axis) is temperature.[1] Below is an example of a cooling curve used incastings.
The initial point of the graph is the starting temperature of the matter, here noted as the "pouring temperature". When the phase change occurs, there is a "thermal arrest"; that is, the temperature stays constant. This is because the matter has moreinternal energy as a liquid or gas than in the state that it is cooling to. The amount of energy required for a phase change is known aslatent heat. The "cooling rate" is the slope of the cooling curve at any point.
Alloys have a melting point range. It solidifies as shown in the figure above. First, the molten alloy reaches to liquidus temperature and then freezing range starts. At solidus temperature, the molten alloy becomes solid.
| State |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Low energy | ||
| High energy | ||
| Other states | ||
| Phase transitions | ||
| Quantities | ||
| Concepts | ||
 | Thisthermodynamics-related article is astub. You can help Wikipedia byadding missing information. |
 | This article aboutstatistical mechanics is astub. You can help Wikipedia byadding missing information. |