Nickel is ferro magnetic in nature. But when it is added with stainless steel, it makes stainless steel non-magnetic. What is the structural changes happened with the presence of nickel?
Steel is magnetic because of the alignment of the spin in the electrons of the atoms in the crystaline matrix of the steel. Nickel atoms are not the same size as Iron atoms and Chromium atoms. by having several different sizes of atoms in the alloy, it prevents a uniform crystaline matrix from being formed. If you imagine a box of marbles that are all the same size, they will all settle into a regular pattern in the box. But a bunch of mismatched marbles will be jumbled together in irregular patterns. This prevents the magnetic properties of either element from asserting itself.
All stainless steel is non magnetic.
Dear Ian, Magnetism doesn't add up or average out in that manner. Ferro-magnetism requires that all the spins align. This is a complex effect and needs a subtle interaction between adjacent atoms in the lattice and their singlet electrons. The distance between the the atoms is what is important. Some stainless steels are ferromagnetic because they have the correct spacing, others are not because the spacing is wrong. This spacing is influenced by the makeup of the alloy. Hope that helps a bit:RufusCat Copyleft:RufusCat
