dead-meltv.
/ˈdɛdmɛlt/ transitive. To keep (metal) at a melting temperature until it is perfectly fluid and no more gas is evolved.
ΚΠ
1880 Encycl. Brit. XIII. 341/2 If cast immediately it is found that a much larger quantity of gas separates during solidification, rendering the steel porous, than is evolved if the metal is dead-melted, i.e., allowed to remain melted for an extra half hour or more.
1884 W. H. Greenwood Steel & Iron xviii. 425 Too long exposure to the heat, or extreme ‘dead-melting’, produces a metal that runs dull and dead, affording ingots also of inferior quality.
Derivatives
dead melt n. the state of a melt when it contains no solid and is evolving no gas.
ΚΠ
1929 W. Lister Pract. Steelmaking viii. 48 When the whole charge has come to a dead melt, but not before, commence to feed.
dead-melted adj.
ΚΠ
1919 Nature 103 169/1 There is a particular equilibrium at which no chemical reaction takes place. The heat is then what is called ‘dead-melted’.
1952 C. A. Edwards Struct. & Properties Mild Steel i. 15 Towards the end of the operation of making steel by the acid process..the oxygen content of the metal will be extremely low... A charge of this kind is known as ‘dead melted’ steel, which means that..solidification proceeds without the liberation of gas.
dead-melting n.
ΚΠ
1880 Encycl. Brit. XIII. 341/2 The ‘dead melting’ effect of the extra time allowed in fusing steel for the molten metal to stand in the furnace after fusion is brought about is due [etc.].
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1933; most recently modified version published online September 2018).
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