How Iron Feels the Heat

Brent Fultz, Barbara and Stanley R. Rawn, Jr., Professor of Materials Science and Applied Physics, and colleagues’ recent work provides evidence for how iron's magnetism plays a role in its curious properties—an understanding that could help researchers develop better and stronger steel. With a better computational model for the thermodynamics of iron at different temperatures—one that takes into account the effects of both magnetism and atomic vibrations—metallurgists will now be able to more accurately predict the thermodynamic properties of iron alloys as they alter their recipes. [Caltech story]