Abstract Scope |
Ternary Au-Zn-Al alloys are under investigation as non-radioactive, high density materials with complex phase transformations. Additionally, these alloys also have demonstrated relatively high strengths with moderate ductility. For example, recent mechanical testing of Au65Zn30Al5 shows yield and ultimate compressive strengths of 550 and 1230 MPa, respectively. The purpose of this study is to characterize the temperature dependent mechanical properties of Au65Zn30Al5 and investigate the influence of Al additions on strength in Au75Zn25+Alx (x = 0, 0.5, 1, 2, 3.5, 5, and 8 at pct). Microstructures of these alloys tend to be dual phase, heavily twinned, non-equiaxed grains, within visible prior-(α, α1, or β’) grain boundaries (i.e. the high temperature phases of the Au-Zn binary system). The highly twinned microstructures are compared to the observed mechanical properties. The results of this study are combined with thermophysical property characterization and modeling efforts to improve fundamental understandings of processing high density metal alloys. |