European countries are arranged alphabetically; for interesting facts about a particular country, please click on country’s initial letter. The Albanian national hero, Skanderbeg, stopped the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in Western Europe. His contribution is commemorated in monuments, statues, and squares named after him in many European cities, as Rome, Vienna, Geneva, Skopje, and Pristina, Paris and Brussels. The alloy of tin and copper is called bronze. Tin by itself was too soft to work with. The oldest known artefacts made from bronze have such a low tin content that it was probably added by accident. The cable from a cable car is made from steel with a hemp center to increase flexibility. To protect the cable from rusting a zinc coating is often applied which can often last up to 50 years. The Doppelmayr Garaventa Group is an Austrian company that specialises in cable cars as well as other urban people movers and material handling systems. They are the worlds leading and largest ropeway manufacturers.

The Austrian engineer Paul Eisler invented the first printed circuit which became commonplace commercially in the 1950’s. In the event you loved this short article and you would like to receive much more information about circular bars assure visit our own web-site. Today just about every electronic appliance contains a printed circuit board. The invention of the PBC has helped to enable electronic circuits to be more compact and convenient. The PBC board is either made from fiberglass with a copper foil bonded on to one or both sides or paper reinforced phenolic resin with bonded copper foil. The latter is less expensive and can be found in most household appliances. A thin layer of tin-lead can also be found in PBC’s which prevents oxidation and also nickel and gold which enhances conductivity. Lead glass differs from typical potash glass as the lead it contains replaces the calcium content making it more attractive whilst also easier to melt and manipulate. Swarovski AG is a popular Austrian producer of luxury cut lead glass. Lead glass consists of 18-40 % weight lead oxide (PbO) however the European Union regulations state that glass products must contain at least 24% of lead oxide to be considered lead glass.

Vitreous enamel is versatile in the sense that it can be applied to almost any metal. Austria and Germany were the first countries to apply enamel commercially to sheet iron and steel which is now common world wide. The key ingredient of vitreous enamel is frit which is actually a type of glass. The curved bowl of Belgian beer glasses directs the hop aroma’s (responsible for 75% of the beers taste) better towards your nose than a straight pint glass. Thin glass walls will keep a drink colder. The more pure quartz is used to make the glass, the thinner the walls can be. The Atomium was built for the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels and is shaped to form one unit cell of an iron crystal, magnified 165 billion times. It symbolises the democratic wish to have peace between all people in technical and scientific development. Despite the fact that the Atomium was not intended to survive beyond 1958, it is now a key landmark of Brussels.

The copper, aluminium, zinc and tin mixture that the 10, 20 and 50 cent euro coins are made of is non-allergenic and has antifungal properties. Also, the copper makes all coins weakly antimicrobial. To ensure that Euro coins can’t be counterfeit, high-security machine-readable features have been added. Nordic gold is used to make the €0.10, €0.20 and €0.50 coins. This unique alloy is difficult to melt and is used primarily for coins. The Belgian designer Luc Luycx, designed the reverse side of the Euro coin showing the value of the coin. Today, asphalt concrete is used for a variety of purposes such as to surface roads, parking lots and airports and also as the core of embarkment dams (to name a few) and consists of mineral aggregate bound together with asphalt, laid in layers and compacted. It was a Belgian inventor and U.S. Edward de Smedt that enhanced and refined the process of making asphalt concrete. Copper not only conducts heat very well but it also stores it keeping your coffee warm for a longer time.

Copper is mainly used in a mixture with other metals called an alloy. For instance brass is an alloy of copper and zinc and bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. The St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral is one of the largest Eastern Orthodox cathedrals in the world. Its beautiful interior is decorated with Italian marble Brazilian onyx alabaster and other luxurious materials. The decor is one of the churches many features that attracts tourists making it Sofia’s primary tourist attraction. The 12 bells that ring in the clock tower of the church weigh almost 23 tons in total. Georgi Nadjakov a Bulgarian physicist experimented investigating the photo conducting properties of sulphur which led to his discovery of the photoelectret state. Its practical application led to the invention of the modern day photocopier by Chester Carlosn some years later. Bulgaria has many exports, including clothing, iron and steel and machinery and equipment.