Re: What is the specific heat of steel?

I'm afraid that I'll have to answer your question with another question: What do you mean, 'steel'? Steel is the name given to alloys or iron and there is an infinite number of possible steels. Steel is defined by Metalmart's Dictionary of Metal Terminology (http://www.metal-mart.com/dictlist.htm) as follows: "Iron; •malleable in at least one range of temperature below its melting point without special heat treatment •substantially free from slag •containing carbon more than about 0.05% and less than about 2.00%. Other alloying elements may be present in significant quantities, but all steels contain at least small amounts of manganese and silicon, and usually as undesirable constituents, also sulphur and phosphorus."   Many varieties of steel are defined e.g. Stainless steel: "Corrosion resistant steel of a wide variety, but always containing a high percentage of chromium. These are highly resistant to corrosion attack by organic acids, weak mineral acids, atmospheric oxidation, etc." (No mention that stainless steel was invented in Sheffield, the city where I studied for my degree.)  Steel is basically a mixture, although some iron carbide (Fe3C) is present. Because it is not a compound, its molar mass is not an important property. The molar mass of pure iron remains 55.85 g/mol, the molar mass of carbon remains 12.01 g/mol and iron carbide has a molar mass of 179.56 g/mol. These figures are not affected by the proportions of the substances present in the mixture. I got the figures from WebElements at Sheffield University: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~chem/web-elements/main/index-nofr.html  The specific heat capacity for iron is 0.438 Jg-1K-1, according to our 'Book of Data'(RD Harrison, ed, Longman press). This converts to 0.1047 cal g-1K-1 if you are still working in calories. (1 cal = 4.184 J) According to Kaye & Laby (Tables of Physical and Chemical Constants, Longman press), the heat capacities of carbon depend on its physical state, but vary from 0.690 Jg-1K-10.165 cal g-1K-1 (charcoal)0.669 Jg-1K-10.160 cal g-1K-1 (graphite)0.510 Jg-1K-10.122 cal g-1K-1 (diamond) Evidently, a mixture of iron and carbon will have a heat capacity between those of iron and carbon. Perhaps for 1% carbon steel a figure calculated by adding 1% of the heat capacity of carbon and 99% of the heat capacity of iron would provide a reasonable estimate.