What Does
Cold Shortness Mean?
Cold shortness occurs when a material is lowered to a temperature where it becomes brittle. A material can be ductile at one temperature and very hard and breakable at another if it is affected by cold shortness. Not all materials are affected by cold shortness. For materials that are affected by cold shortness, the temperature at which brittleness occurs varies from material to material.
Corrosionpedia Explains Cold Shortness
Cold shortness is very much related to the ductile to brittle transition temperature of a material, which is the temperature at which a material loses much of its ductility and becomes brittle. Cold shortness occurs at anything below the transition temperature. This temperature can be found by performing an impact test on a given material type over a range of temperatures and charting the values received by the tests.
Not all materials are affected by cold shortness. The crystal structure plays in an important role as to whether or not cold shortness plays a role in the ductility of a material. Materials that have body-centered cubic structures are the most likely to have reduced ductility at lower temperatures. Hexagonal close packed structures can also be subjected to cold shortness. Face-centered cubic structured materials are not affected by cold shortness. Examples of specific materials that are affected by cold shortness include steel, alloy steel, cast iron, molybdenum, chromium and tungsten.