Microstructures and Hardness Changes of Au0.1Be Under four Strengthening Methods

Abstract

Abstract With the epidemic of coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) worldwide gold price reaches to a new heights, which inevitably increase the costs of gold products especially jewelry industry. The jewelry industry including other industries need harder gold based microalloy to produce more delicate, more light but bigger size gold products. We prepared 3 gold based micro-alloys --Au0.1Li,Au0.1Be and Au0.1B an tested that Be is the most effective element in strengthening fine gold. With the o.1wt.% Be additions the hardness of fine gold is improved from 30HV to 69HV and the grain sizes of fine gold are significantly refined from the the range of 300 -700um to the range of 6-30um. Thereafter, work hardening, Supercooling testing, Heat Treatment and Nitrogen Ion Implantation testing were applied to see how they influence the hardness and microstructures of Au0.1Be.