Hi Brian,
Günter, as usual, did an excellent job explaing what eutectic compositions 
are and what they do. The origin of eutectic compositions and Solidus and 
Liquidus lines comes, to my knowledge, originally from the steel industry.

The reason I write this is that I am surprised that even you have fallen into 
the sloppy language trap.

There are Solidus and Liquidus temperatures for each composition—I capitalize 
them because the properly should be defioned proper nouns even though the OAD 
does not define them as such. However, there is no such word as liquidus as 
in "...will not attain liquidus..." An alloy may become liquid or liquify, but 
cannot become 'liquidus', or even 'liquidous' for that matter.
One of the reasons people have started this misuse is, IMHO, that often these 
words are not capitalized.



Werner



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