TEST RESULTS was re: inconel or stainless

You could send me a chunk off the grate and I could sweet talk the guy at the scrap yard to use the XRF on it.

You could look on Ebay and get someone else to XRF it. I think most places charge about $25.

Or I could send you a couple of pieces of inconel welding rod so you can check how known inconel acts and sparks. There are more than one inconel, but at least you would know exactly what the welding rod was.

I have no experience with seeing if a metal sugars when heated. I would expert different stainless steel to not all act the same.

Dan

I imagine that the alloy is a high nickle content alloy because then it would resist oxidation at high heat, which is what you found. Beyond that I don't know. I'm glad the sugaring test worked out, it's pretty obvious when it occurs. Eric

Dan, thanks a lot. Let me see if I can sweet talk my friend scrap yard first, if not maybe I can ask for your help.

i

I had a pan made out of Hastelloy X once. Expensive stuff. I was running calcining tests in a lab. The hastelloys may be even more expensive than inconel. I also had a twin screw extruder made of inconel, don't remember the alloy. Out of the 15 barrel sections, there was one combi barrel with side and top feed ports. I remember it was $40,000 in the mid '90's. This was a 40 mm. machine.

Pete Keillor

I would agree.

Whether it is an inconel, monel, or other ally it is hard to say, though it does have the look of a nickel-chromium (inconel-type) alloy, the slightly whitish powdery look it develops is (may be) chromium oxide.

Best way is to test it is energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy with an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (handheld XRF).

At $25k these are very expensive though, but a good high-tech scrappie should have one, and would probably test it for a few dollars. Alternatively you can send a sample off for testing for $20-30.

If it is inconel (or monel) it is worth a bit as scrap. Not as much as quite a lot of people think or hope, but a rough guide expect about $3.00 - $4.00 per lb.

-- Peter Fairbrother

If Iggy can't get a sample tested with a XRF then I had wondered about suggesting a crude OE spectrometer as I know Iggy has a TIG welder. Strike an arc on the sample, pass it through a slit and a prism and take a picture of the resultant colour bands. I expect information on the visible spectral lines of the likely constituent metals is available on the internet. Some known samples of steel and stainless steel would help as a reference and it might at least help get closer to the alloy type. I know in practice the spectrometers are far more complicated as I used to write software for both OE and XRF spectrometers.

That's a good thought, but the composition of Inconel 600 (the most common grade used in furnaces) is identical to that in lower-level 300-Series stai nless. The only thing different is the quantities of iron and nickel. (Inco nel 600 is 72% nickel; 304 stainless is 8%). The quantities of iron and nic kel in each are almost exactly reversed.

You'd need something more than spectral lines to tell them apart.

On 25/07/16 12:02, Pete Keillor wrote: [..]

Hastelloys themself in raw form are only a little more expensive than Inconels (depends on exact alloy, but roughly speaking) - but they are even more of a pig to machine.

I have been trying to cut or otherwise part off a 1-1/2" Hastelloy X bar for about ten years. Gone through I don't know how many bimetal and carbide hacksaw/bandsaw blades; carbide, ceramic, diamond and CBN parting inserts ..

Yep, machined inconel parts are hellova expensive; machining inconel is a total pain in the butt and many people refuse to do it.

Sadly, scrap inconel isn't that valuable - as I said elsewhere, expect $3-4 per lb. A lot of the value in Inconel parts is in the forming, especially if it has to be machined.

One of the first uses of DMLS (direct metal laser sintering, a type of

3D metal printing) in Inconel was a muzzle brake, which despite the horrible costs of DMLS in Inconel, costs 3/4 of the price of a similar machined muzzle brake ...

-- Peter Fairbrother

[who fairly regularly machines Inconels and monels, and wishes it was easier]

I guess it would depend on how the intensity of the spectral lines can be discriminated between in that case between different alloys in a photograph. I know the old OE instruments I wrote software for had photo multipliers and IIRC connected to the prism chamber with fibre optics and each photomultiplier was dedicated to a spectral line and the instruments tended to be set-up to analyse a particular class of material such as steel and its associated constituent elements. I think these days things have moved on and CCD sensors are used. The last time I wrote software for the company was about 7 years ago.

A guy I know locally did some development work on a handheld XRF and showed me the prototype, apparently it had a 25kV source in it but in the end it was decided easier or cheaper to buy a company that already made them but they use a radioactive source IIRC and that can present transport problem in some jurisdictions. Having seen them I can understand why they're often referred to as a brick on a stick.

sad news... this is 304 stainless

When you said "catalytic oven," that was my thought. Most of those things are made with an open exhaust and are made for curing paint and powder coatings -- low-temperature stuff.

However, I'm sure there are other kinds. I've just never seen any except the ones used in finishing departments. The catalyst is there to oxidize CO into CO2.

So how did you finally get the determination?

...

Nuclear fuel rod cladding and spacer grids are Inconel for the reduction in Fe for the purpose of minimizing parasitic neutron capture. B&W NNFD (Navy Nuclear Fuel Department, sole purveyors of nuclear fuel to USN) pioneered the use of laser to allow for punching a hole thru the cladding to pull vacuum and insert the inert fill gas, then one of the fella's at the Lynchburg Research Center had the bright idea that when done, all had to do was defocus the laser a little and it welded the hole back shut...a _much_ simpler and thereby cheaper technique than trying to backfill then weld on the end cap over the full rod had been doing up to then. "The Admiral" was most pleased (showing how long ago this is getting to be by now)...but the technique is still used for commercial fuel as well.

XRF gun...

That's a good thought, but the composition of Inconel 600 (the most common grade used in furnaces) is identical to that in lower-level

300-Series stainless. The only thing different is the quantities of iron and nickel. (Inconel 600 is 72% nickel; 304 stainless is 8%). The quantities of iron and nickel in each are almost exactly reversed.

You'd need something more than spectral lines to tell them apart.

Remember the XRF gun is adjustable. If one turns it back so only % over 10% or 20% all sorts of metal is down graded.

I caught my local guy setting it to 20% and saying AR400F was A-6 steel. I knew better.

Mart> >>> sad news... this is 304 stainless