Buehler Mini Arc-Melter MAM-1E
Description:
Cast pure metals and complex alloys into small test samples.
Features:
- Sample Sizes 5-20g
- Melt temperature up to 3500 °C
- Quick-turn production time
UC Rate: $21/hour
External Rate (Non-UC) : $31/hour
Summary of Equipment
The MAM-1E is a powerful tool for fast production of small alloy samples. The water-cooled copper crucible can hold 5-20 g of powder compact, foil, shot, etc. to melt into a homogeneous sample. Due to its small vacuum chamber, the system can be flushed to a fully inert atmosphere within minutes. This allows the sample to be quickly turned and re-melted to produce a homogeneous alloy.
In Research
This equipment may be used to create ingots of metals such as stainless steel or lightweight alloys. Research institutes have used this system to create HEAs, shape-memory alloys, bulk metallic glasses, and more.
Eutectic microstructures in dilute Al-Ce and Al-Co alloys
Researchers at University of Connecticut prepared alloy samples of Al-Ce and Al-Co using the MAM-1 arc-melter. The phases of these alloys were observed using TEM. It was found that the alloy’s crystallography exhibits eutectic microstructures that influence its apparent morphology. Electron diffraction was used to relate the morphology of each system to lattice matching between the phases.
Yu Sun, Cain Hung, Rainer J. Hebert, Colette Fennessy, Eutectic microstructures in dilute Al-Ce and Al-Co alloys, Materials Characterization, Volume 154, 2019
Rapidly Solidified Metallic Glass Alloys for Antibacterial Touching Surfaces
Researchers at Northumbria University, UK produced amorphous metal samples using a Buehler Arc-Melter. The samples were melted, casted and cooled under controlled parameters to obtain metallic glass ingots and study their effect on e-coli versus stainless steel. The antimicrobial effect was believed to be due to copper ion diffusion in the BMG.
Visual: Viable colony units of e-coli tend to remain constant in number over time on 304 Stainless. They tend to decrease in number over time on the Cu-Zr BMG (240, 1200, 4000 grit, as-cast and oxidized)
Our MAM-1E Does not currently have the suction casting option referenced
Figure 48: Number of surviving E. coli cells deposited on steel and both as-cast and oxidized samples with different toughness for 1, 2.5 and 4 h of contact time.
Morphology of the deposited E. coli bacteria on (a) 314SS, (b) 4000 as-cast and (c) 4000 oxidized samples after 4 h.
Villapún Puzas, Victor Manuel. Rapidly Solidified Metallic Glass Alloys for Antibacterial Touching Surfaces. Doctoral thesis, Northumbria University, 2018
Hysteresis, latent heat and cycling effects on the magnetocaloric response of (NiMnSi)0.66(Fe2Ge)0.34 alloy
The researchers used a MAM-1 to cast a high-entropy alloy that is known to exhibit a magnetocaloric effect. Enthalpy data was collected after magnetically cycling the samples. The data gathered shows that the alloy’s magnetocaloric property exhibits low reversibility and high hysteresis.
Fig. 6. (a) Field dependence of the adiabatic temperature change at different temperatures starting at zero field when cooling and at maximum field (1.75 T) when heating. (b) Temperature dependence of the adiabatic temperature change for 1.75 T using discontinuous measurement. Both data for powdered sample compacted using GE varnish.
L.M. Moreno-Ramírez, Á. Díaz-García, J.Y. Law, A.K. Giri, V. Franco, Hysteresis, latent heat and cycling effects on the magnetocaloric response of (NiMnSi)0.66(Fe2Ge)0.34 alloy Intermetallics, Volume 131, 2021
