Journal of Materials Science, Vol.44, No.21, 5829-5835, 2009
Formation of dendritic precipitates in the beta phase of Cu-based alloys
The isothermal treatment of the beta phase in some Cu-based alloys produces its decomposition by an earlier precipitation of gamma phase. During their growth, by means of a diffusion-controlled process, the precipitates show evidences of morphological changes. In the first stages and for a Cu-Zn-Al alloy, the morphology is spherical and cuboidal, but develops more complex shapes such as dendrites, owing to composition fields, interphase overlapping, crystallography characteristics, and relative orientation. In this work, a dendritic gamma precipitate characterization is done and morphological theoretical predictions are applied, for Cu-Zn-Al and Cu-Al-Be alloys.