Pb - Solidfication shrinkage & solid thermal contraction

[bterning]

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone can help me out in finding out how much Lead shrinks volumetricaly bewteen its liquid state, solid state at standard room temperature? I am just looking for rule of thumb percentage decreases. if it hepls any of you I am using a permanent mold with the top exposed to the open air. Any help as to where I can get my hands on some of this information would be much appreciated. Thanks for your help.

Brett

 

[TVP]

Try one of the following websites for more info on lead:

http://www.ldaint.org/informat6.htm

http://www.leadinfo.com/

http://www.vulcanlead.com/newfiles/library.html

The last one has a list of several references which probably has the exact data for which you are searching.

 

[mcguire]

liquid density @ 327C is 11.1005 g/cc (melting point)
solid density @ 327C is 10.686 g/cc
solid desity @ 20C is 11.34 g/cc
source: Metals Handbook 1985 pages 12.4

 

[bilge]

If you are not casting pure lead but a lead alloy, I would suggest that you look at a book by W. Hofmann, "Lead and Lead Alloys," published by Springer-Verlag He has data (on page 79) for antimonial-leads and for type metals (on page 362).

One concern in casting alloys is that the shrinkage will depend not only on the alloy content but on the cooling rate as well.