eli5: if steel is made by mixing carbon and iron at high temp, what happens when you add carbon to other metals like brass, copper or gold? does it make “brass steel”?

Question

eli5: if steel is made by mixing carbon and iron at high temp, what happens when you add carbon to other metals like brass, copper or gold? does it make “brass steel”?

In: 276

Answer 1

That’s exactly what brass actually is – a mixture of copper with zinc, which greatly improves its material properties.

Brass is basically a “copper steel” – same with bronze.

Ultimately – most *pure* metals are actually quite weak in their pure elemental state. Once we start adding different materials (which we experiment with to find the best additives for each, depending on what we want) we make them stronger in what’s known as an “Alloy”.

Steel is an alloy of iron. There are many forms of it, just like there are many alloys of aluminium, brass, etc.

Welcome to metallurgy.