Jäähdytyskäyrät

Jäähdytyskäyrät, known in English as cooling curves, are graphical representations that illustrate the change in temperature of a substance over time as it cools. Typically, they depict a substance transitioning from a liquid or gaseous state to a solid state. The y-axis represents temperature, and the x-axis represents time.

When a liquid cools, its temperature generally decreases linearly. However, upon reaching its freezing point, a plateau or a slower rate of cooling is observed. This phenomenon occurs because the substance releases latent heat of fusion as it solidifies. Once the solidification is complete, the temperature of the solid continues to decrease linearly.

The shape of the cooling curve can provide valuable information about a substance's thermal properties, such as its freezing point and the amount of energy released during phase transitions. For alloys and mixtures, the cooling curve might not exhibit a sharp, distinct plateau but rather a gradual decrease in temperature over a range, indicating a solidification process occurring over a temperature interval rather than at a single point. Studying these curves is important in fields like metallurgy, materials science, and chemistry for understanding solidification processes, identifying substances, and controlling material properties.