New Physical Properties Data for Alloys

We normally don’t think about how involved alloys are in our day-to-day lives, but the roads and bridges we take to get to work, our cars, cell phones, computers, and even our homes and furniture often contain alloys. And people who create these objects need access to reliable and trustworthy sources of information about the physical properties of all types of alloys, so they can choose the right material for a particular application.

That’s why we’re pleased to announce that Wolfram|Alpha can now provide detailed information about more than 11,000 kinds of alloys, in response to simple, natural-language queries:

As in the example above, if the query is done on a group of alloys, Wolfram|Alpha will return the average result for that group, along with some useful information such as the alloys that correspond to the highest and lowest values and the distribution of these alloys in the group. However, you will have the option to drill down through the various treatments and choose a specific alloy. As an example, you can choose to see tensile yield strength for an AISI 1050 alloy that has been annealed at 790°C.

Wolfram|Alpha also knows about the cases in which the value of a certain property might depend on the test conditions. The following example shows that the reported value of elongation at break for 1040 steel was measured with a gauge length of 50 millimeters.

In addition to test conditions, some properties depend on temperature variations, in which case Wolfram|Alpha will report the value measured at a temperature closest to room temperature and provide a plot for the temperature variation.

Sometimes you might be interested in seeing all the properties for an alloy at the same time. You can accomplish this by simply typing in the name of the alloy you would like to see. Wolfram|Alpha will then provide you with all the available properties and attributes for the alloy you asked for.

In this case, Wolfram|Alpha shows all the properties and the testing temperature for the given alloy, where the properties are grouped by relevance. Similar to the case of single property, if the query is done on a group of alloys, then the mean value will be reported for each property, along with the range of variation (if any). You can choose to see the details of the values reported, such as different test conditions in which the experiment was performed. Again, it is possible to refine the search by choosing one of the specific alloy treatments from the drop-down menu at the top.

One of the basic goals of Wolfram|Alpha is to provide all kinds of data in many different fields. Having a solid and fairly complete set of data on alloys is a fundamental step in exploring the fields of mechanical and structural engineering. The Wolfram|Alpha team is committed to developing new and exciting features in these fields, using alloy data wherever relevant. We hope that you will find new and exciting ways to use alloy data as well.