Melting

Mechanical failure modes
	Buckling
	Corrosion
	Creep
	Fracture
	Impact
	Melting
	Mechanical overload
	Rupture
	Thermal shock
	Wear
	Yielding

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In physics, melting is the process of heating a solid substance to a point (called the melting point) where it turns liquid. An object that has melted is molten.

Explanatory

Not only is heat required to raise the temperature of the solid to the melting point, but the melting itself requires heat; see also latent heat and heat of fusion.

From a thermodynamics point of view, at the melting point the change in Gibbs free energy ( $\Delta G$ ) of the Material is zero, because the enthalpy ( $H$ ) and the entropy ( $S$ ) of the material are increasing ( $\Delta H,\Delta S>0$ ). Melting phenomenon happens when the Gibbs free energy of the liquid becomes lower than the solid for that material. At various pressures this happens at a specific temperature. It can also be shown that:

$\Delta S={\frac {\Delta H}{T}}$

The " $T$ "," $\Delta S$ ", and " $\Delta H$ " in the above are respectively the temperature at the melting point, change of entropy of melting, and the change of enthalpy of melting.

Freezing, the process of turning a liquid to a solid, is the opposite of melting. The melting point and freezing point are usually the same temperature. See the phase article for more detail.

Books

Kleinert, Hagen, Gauge Fields in Condensed Matter, Vol. II, "STRESSES AND DEFECTS; Differential Geometry, Crystal Melting", pp. 743-1456, World Scientific (Singapore, 1989); Paperback ISBN 9971-50-210-0 (readable online here)

Other meanings

In genetics, melting DNA means to separate the double-stranded DNA into two single strands by heating or the use of chemicals.

See also : Polymerase chain reaction

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