Vanadium dissolves in γ iron to about 1% and in austenite containing about 0.2% carbon - up to 4% in α iron at high temperatures,
the solubility of vanadium is unlimited. The influence of vanadium on the properties of steel is the same as that of tungsten but
much stronger. The addition of vanadium increases the strength, elasticity, hardness and toughness and incombination with other
elements increases the creep strength of steel. Vanadium creates a very hard VC carbides in steel which, combined with resistance
to indulgent operation of warmth makes it being used in large quantities in high-speed steels.
Vanadium - atomic number 23, atomic weight 50.942 melting point 1730 ° C, wrzenia3000 ° C density of 6.07 g / cm 3
(Encyclopedia of Technology, Publishing House "Silesia")
Pure vanadium has good plasticity, is easy in machining and welds well in an argon atmosphere.
It is resistant to corrosion and the operation of alkali.
In 1801 in Mexico, Spanish professor of mineralogy, Andreas Manuel Del Rio (1764 - 1849) during the test of lead ore samples,
announced that it has detected a new metal. This metal, Del Rio called Erythronium (from the Greek "red") because it was
very much like chrome. Four years after his discovery, convinced by other scientists, withdrew from his discovery
and found that he was dealing only with compounds of chromium, Del Rio did nor realise that the red color can be given by other
compounds as well. Cessation of further study enabled the discovery of vanadium Swedish chemist Nils Sefströmov (1787-1945),
who found this element in a piece of iron rendered in one of Sweden's steel mills. Sefström named it vanadium in honor to
Scandinavian goddess of beauty and fertility Vanadis (Freya). A few years after his discovery vanadium again confused another
outstanding Swedish scientist Jöns Jacob Berzelius (1779-1848). He led the study of this element in order to establish its properties,
but after all of the studies it turned out, the object is not was a pure vanadium, but its oxide - VO. In 1867, English chemist
Henry Enfield Roscoe (1833-1915) first isolated the metal in the process of reduction of hydrogen vanadium chloride.
In 1925, two American chemists John Wesley Marden and Malcolm N. Rich obtained vanadium of 99.7 percent purity in the
process of reduction of calcium. Vanadium, for a very long time was not used for the technique purposes, only in 1896 in France,
noted the great advantages of this metal as an alloy ingredient and was put into production, for example for the production of
armor vanadium plate steel in metallurgic armament factories at Le Creusot Schneider. Vanadium, however, was produced in
small quantities. It was only in 1905 in Peru after the discovery of major ore deposits could expand the production of vanadium steel.
Vanadium just in small amounts exerts a strong influence on the properties of steel.
Vanadium steel is used in a wide range in industry, mostly as a spring steel, tool steel,
high speed steel and steel for a whole range of machinery parts as gears, bolts, machine construction, aviation and aircraft parts.
