Constantan – Material Table – Applications – Price

About Constantan

Constantan is a copper–nickel alloy consisting usually of 55% copper and 45% nickel and specific minor amounts of additional elements to achieve precise (almost constant) values for the temperature coefficient of resistivity. That means, its main feature is the low thermal variation of its resistivity, which is constant over a wide range of temperatures. Other alloys with similarly low temperature coefficients are known, such as manganin.

Summary

Name	Constantan
Phase at STP	solid
Density	8860 kg/m3
Ultimate Tensile Strength	420 MPa
Yield Strength	150 MPa
Young’s Modulus of Elasticity	162 GPa
Brinell Hardness	250 BHN
Melting Point	1207 °C
Thermal Conductivity	21.2 W/mK
Heat Capacity	390 J/g K
Price	28 $/kg

Composition of Constantan

Constantan contains 55 percent copper and 44 percent nickel.

Applications of Constantan

Constantan is used for the measurement of temperature, the formation of thermocouple or resistance purpose.

Mechanical Properties of Constantan

Strength of Constantan

In mechanics of materials, the strength of a material is its ability to withstand an applied load without failure or plastic deformation. Strength of materials basically considers the relationship between the external loads applied to a material and the resulting deformation or change in material dimensions. In designing structures and machines, it is important to consider these factors, in order that the material selected will have adequate strength to resist applied loads or forces and retain its original shape.

Strength of a material is its ability to withstand this applied load without failure or plastic deformation. For tensile stress, the capacity of a material or structure to withstand loads tending to elongate is known as ultimate tensile strength (UTS). Yield strength or yield stress is the material property defined as the stress at which a material begins to deform plastically whereas yield point is the point where nonlinear (elastic + plastic) deformation begins. In case of tensional stress of a uniform bar (stress-strain curve), the Hooke’s law describes behaviour of a bar in the elastic region. The Young’s modulus of elasticity is the elastic modulus for tensile and compressive stress in the linear elasticity regime of a uniaxial deformation and is usually assessed by tensile tests.

See also: Strength of Materials

Ultimate Tensile Strength of Constantan

Ultimate tensile strength of Constantan is 420 MPa.

Yield Strength of Constantan

Yield strength of Constantan is 150 MPa.

Modulus of Elasticity of Constantan

The Young’s modulus of elasticity of Constantan is 162 GPa.

Hardness of Constantan

In materials science, hardness is the ability to withstand surface indentation (localized plastic deformation) and scratching. Brinell hardness test is one of indentation hardness tests, that has been developed for hardness testing. In Brinell tests, a hard, spherical indenter is forced under a specific load into the surface of the metal to be tested.

The Brinell hardness number (HB) is the load divided by the surface area of the indentation. The diameter of the impression is measured with a microscope with a superimposed scale. The Brinell hardness number is computed from the equation:

Brinell hardness of Constantan is approximately 250 BHN(converted).

See also: Hardness of Materials

Thermal Properties of Constantan

Constantan – Melting Point

Melting point of Constantan is 1207 °C.

Note that, these points are associated with the standard atmospheric pressure. In general, melting is a phase change of a substance from the solid to the liquid phase. The melting point of a substance is the temperature at which this phase change occurs. The melting point also defines a condition in which the solid and liquid can exist in equilibrium. For various chemical compounds and alloys, it is difficult to define the melting point, since they are usually a mixture of various chemical elements.

Constantan – Thermal Conductivity

Thermal conductivity of Constantan is 21.2 W/(m·K).

The heat transfer characteristics of a solid material are measured by a property called the thermal conductivity, k (or λ), measured in W/m.K. It is a measure of a substance’s ability to transfer heat through a material by conduction. Note that Fourier’s law applies for all matter, regardless of its state (solid, liquid, or gas), therefore, it is also defined for liquids and gases.

The thermal conductivity of most liquids and solids varies with temperature. For vapors, it also depends upon pressure. In general:

Most materials are very nearly homogeneous, therefore we can usually write k = k (T). Similar definitions are associated with thermal conductivities in the y- and z-directions (ky, kz), but for an isotropic material the thermal conductivity is independent of the direction of transfer, kx = ky = kz = k.

Constantan – Specific Heat

Specific heat of Constantan is 390 J/g K.

Specific heat, or specific heat capacity, is a property related to internal energy that is very important in thermodynamics. The intensive properties c_v and c_p are defined for pure, simple compressible substances as partial derivatives of the internal energy u(T, v) and enthalpy h(T, p), respectively:

where the subscripts v and p denote the variables held fixed during differentiation. The properties c_v and c_p are referred to as specific heats (or heat capacities) because under certain special conditions they relate the temperature change of a system to the amount of energy added by heat transfer. Their SI units are J/kg K or J/mol K.

Properties and prices of other materials

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