[2][3] The practical significance of liquid metal embrittlement is revealed by the observation that several steels experience ductility losses and cracking during hot-dip galvanizing or during subsequent fabrication.
An incubation period and a slow pre-critical crack propagation stage generally precede the final fracture.
Accordingly, maximum LME is seen in cases where alloy addition elements have saturated the grain boundaries of the solid metal.
[2] External parameters like temperature, strain rate, stress and time of exposure to the liquid metal prior to testing affect LME.
The lower limit of the ductility trough generally coincides with the melting point of the liquid metal.
[3] The major ones are listed below; All of these models, with the exception of Robertson,[2][12] utilize the concept of an adsorption-induced surface energy lowering of the solid metal as the central cause of LME.
[21] On 1 January 2004, the Moomba, South Australia, natural gas processing plant operated by Santos suffered a major fire.
The gas release that led to the fire was caused by the failure of a heat exchanger (cold box) inlet nozzle in the liquids recovery plant.
The failure of the inlet nozzle was due to liquid metal embrittlement of the train B aluminium cold box by elemental mercury.
[22] Liquid metal embrittlement plays a central role in the novel Killer Instinct by Joseph Finder.
In the film Big Hero 6, Honey Lemon, voiced by Genesis Rodriguez, uses liquid metal embrittlement in her lab.