Abstract
A RECENT paper from this laboratory1 described the embrittlement of tungsten wire if it be heated in atmospheres containing even traces of ammonia. This work has been extended and has revealed a fact, unobserved in the original study, which furnishes further information which may be helpful in understanding the mechanism. In earlier experiments, the procedure was to heat a length of wire, leaving untreated ends which, since they had not been embrittled, could be clamped in the tensile testing machine without fear of fracture there. The disadvantage of this procedure is that the specimen under test had regions which reached lower temperatures than the central portion, so that any minimum in the embrittlement/treating-temperature curve would not be shown. This aspect was studied in the present series of tests. In these, wire was first annealed so that primary recrystallization was complete2, and then reheated in nitrogen/hydrogen mixture containing 0.2 per cent ammonia. The whole specimens were then used for the test, neglecting those which broke in the clamps.
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Davis, G. L., Metallurgia, 54, 18 (1956).
Davis, G. L., Metallurgia, 58, 177 and 228 (1958).
Tury, P., Nath. naturw. Anz. Ungar. Akad. Wiss., 57, 571 (1939).
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BURDON, P., DAVIS, G. Embrittlement of Tungsten and of Molybdenum. Nature 185, 455 (1960). https://doi.org/10.1038/185455a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/185455a0
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