Views: 8 Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2022-07-13 Origin: Site
If you are in the business of dealing with parts that might be manufactured using different kinds of metals, you are at the right place. In this comprehensive guide, you will get a chance to learn about the differences between metals like bronze, brass, and copper.
By understanding the differences between these three essential materials, you can assess and choose the suitable metal for your manufacturing parts. So, let’s walk through the details.
Bronze is an alloy with a significant chunk of copper in its making, followed by tin and some other kinds of metals in a minimal quantity. Bronze is a very malleable metal and has a reddish-brown color. It amounts to being a rigid material but is a little brittle as well.
The application of bronze comprises many things that may include medals, sculptures, and musical instruments, and in the industry, it is used for manufacturing bearings and other smaller tools. One of the most remarkable properties of bronze is its ability to resist corrosion, making it a suitable choice for many applications.
Brass is also an alloy that comprises a combination of copper and zinc. To adjust the properties as per the application, the material brass may have a varied composition of these two primary metals. Brass is a metal with red color and has a non-ferrous nature.
To increase the strength of brass metal, a higher proportion of zinc may be added to it, making it strong and ductile. The color of brass may also change and vary between yellow and red depending upon its zinc composition. It proves to be a good conductor of heat and has a recyclable nature.
Copper is an element available in its free state and can be extracted easily from the earth. It has a lot of applications like being used in wires and cables because of being a good electricity conductor, manufacturing of different tools, and also on construction sites.
Copper has a flexible nature and hence can be drawn into the form of wires very quickly. It proves to be a strength-oriented metal and can resist corrosion, which is also a great property possessed by it.
These three materials are very commonly used to serve different purposes; they may have many similarities but also have numerous differences. The application and selection of these materials is highly dependent on their differences, so let's dig into these differences and understand them.
If you consider brass and bronze, both prove to be an alloy. This means they don't occur freely in nature and are instead a combination of two or more different metals. In the case of brass, the combination of copper and zinc is featured. Whereas when it comes to bronze it is manufactured with a combination of tin and copper. Other metals may also be combined to attain desired properties in a small quantity.
Copper is a metal present in the periodic table and hence occurs in nature as a free metal. However, because of its occurrence in nature, it may have some impurities which can be eliminated through different processes to have its pure form.
Bronze contains the property of being a highly corrosion-resistant material. It is also resistant to salt water which is because, along with copper and tin, it has other materials too. Similarly, brass is also a high corrosion-resistant material because it also has many metals used in its making.
Alloys are much more corrosion resistant as compared to naturally occurring metals.Therefore, copper also has corrosion resistance but not as much as brass or bronze.
Copper is known to be one of the best conductors of electricity. This is the reason that it is used for making electrical wires. However, these two materials are poor conductors of electricity when it comes to brass and bronze. Therefore, it is a good idea to choose copper over other materials for electrical components.
The thermal conductivity of all three materials, brass, bronze, and copper, is quite impressive. However, the highest thermal conductivity belongs to copper, 232 BTU, brass is second highest with about 64 BTU, and bronze is the least with 44 BTU.
Hence many heating systems comprise copper as one of the essential materials due to its good thermal conductivity.
The use of materials in different applications also depends upon those materials' melting points. Some products need a material with a higher melting point, and some don't.
Copper is one such material among these three choices, with the highest melting point, about 1084 degrees centigrade, and bronze and brass being around 1027 and 930 degrees, respectively.
Their hardness can assess the strength of copper, bronze, and brass. If you look at the hardness comparisons in case of bronze vs copper, copper is the last hard metal and hence is known to be highly ductile. Whereas bronze is the hardest material and hence possesses a greater strength. Brass is also known for its hardness but less than bronze and more than copper. Due to the hardness of bronze, sculptures are made of bronze because of their strength.
Copper is a naturally occurring material in earth with more weight than brass and bronze. However, compared to brass and bronze, the material of bronze amounts to be heavy.
When choosing which material to use in different parts, the condition of durability is one of the most important things. Brass is a material that lacks durability compared to bronze and copper. Brass can easily be cracked and broken down with a little force. Therefore, when comparing brass vs copper in case of durability, copper is a better choice.
However, bronze is one of the most robust materials among the three but also lacks flexibility. Copper is a flexible metal but, over some time, may oxidize. So, depending upon the properties of materials, they are considered for different applications.
It is imperative to have sufficient knowledge about the different materials you may choose for manufacturing different parts. The role played by their properties is quite essential to assessing their suitability. You can always contact KAIAORPRT for any of the metal prototyping, CNC machining, or metal fabrication services required. You will be guided through choosing the suitable material for your parts, and that too at a very reasonable cost, followed by a quick turnaround time.