Surface Tension Measurements on Industrial Alloys by the Drop-Weight Method

The drop-weight method has been successfully applied to a representative set of industrial alloys (W–Re26, Mo–Re50, Pt–Rh10, Pt–Rh30, Ti–Al6–V4, AISI 316 L stainless steel, INCONEL 182 and 600 alloys), with the result that very reproducible surface tension measurements (Δ σ/σ<0.5%) have been established for these materials at the liquidus temperature. This work supports the idea that the simplicity of the drop-weight method should attract much more attention for production control or to provide reference values at the liquidus temperature, although it cannot be used for temperature coefficient measurements of the surface tension.