Light alloys are developed for cutting-edge applications that require high performance, low mass, and often where the cost is not the overriding factor, ranging from space ships to every day applications like automobile or golf clubs. Nanoscale features are critical to many of these alloys’ key performance metrics. Atom Probe Tomography, unlike most microscopies, has equal sensitivity to all elements including the light elements, and can help understand how the microstructure and localized compositions affect the material properties: strength, ductility, resistance to corrosion and/or high temperatures.
Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory recently used APT to understand mechanisms that prevent coarsening of metastable strengthening phases. This resulted in the development of an AlCu alloy that maintains its strength at higher temperatures than its counterparts allowing for light, strong, and high-temperature cylinder heads for next-generation fuel efficient internal combustion engines. This feat would have been impossible without the 3D nanoscale information APT supplied.
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Stronger High-Temperature Light Alloys Enabled by Atom Probe Tomography to learn more!
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