Journal of Alloys and Compounds 721 (2017) 615e621

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Journal of Alloys and Compounds

journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jalcom

Influences of 1.0 wt.% additives on the microstructures and

mechanical properties of gold
Juzi Li a, *, Zhiwu Yan b, Xiaoqing Wang c, Viola L. Acoff d
a
Gemmological Institute, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, China
b
School of Economics and Management, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, China
c
Mechanical Engineering Department, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA
d
Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Gold is an ancient metal, it can be widely used in the electronics, dentistry and jewelry industry. It is also
Received 25 December 2016 well known that pure gold has good ductility and very lower Vickers Hardness. These mechanical
Received in revised form properties of pure gold definitely lead to easy deformation, scratch, abrasion and so on when pure gold is
15 May 2017
put into application. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen pure gold by micro-alloying to avoid its
Accepted 30 May 2017
Available online 31 May 2017
obvious deficiencies and maintain its excellent properties such as yellow color, good thermal conduc-
tivity, and chemical stability. Zr, Ce and Si were chosen as the alloying elements to make “Chuk Kam”,
which are no more than 1.0 wt.%, to strengthen pure gold in this work. The investigations showed that Zr,
Keywords:
Gold
Ce and Si can strengthen pure gold significantly at as-cast gold from 30HV to 69HV, heat treatment state
Micro-alloying to 47.5HV and wrought state to 121HV. In this paper, we show how Zr, Ce and Si modify pure gold in
Strengthening structure, thermal characteristic, mechanical properties and what the distributions of different phases
Microstructure and elements are.
Vickers hardness © 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V.
Chuk Kam

1. Introduction many application fields. In electronic industry, micro-gold alloy

Gold, as an ancient metal, has been utilized over 8000 years by
mankind. To some degree, gold is a symbol of human civilization.
Gold has beautiful yellow color which makes it full of charm and
high aesthetic value. Gold also has good electrical conductivity,
good thermal conductivity, chemical stability and good weldability
[1]. These special properties make it widely used in the electronics
industry [2,3], semiconductor industry [4], jewelry industry [5],
materials protection [6], dental industry [7], and so on.
As we know, pure gold has low Vickers hardness (30), yield
strength and Moh's hardness (2.5), these mechanical properties
limit its application in specific industries and make pure gold
products easily subjected to deformation, scratch and wear [8].
Micro alloying is the basic method to keep the good properties and
avoid the weak aspects of gold [9]. According to Dr. Corti [10],
micro-alloying is usually seen as additions of less than 0.5 wt.%,
typically 0.3 wt.% in total.
Actually, gold based micro alloys have important significance in
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: Jzlgems@126.com (J. Li).
with 0.1 wt.% copper adding can not only increase gold wire
strength but also make stronger binding with the aluminum matrix
[11]. In dental industry, the gold micro alloy made by adding in-
dium 0.2 wt.% and zinc 0.1 wt.% to pure gold has warm color and
good filling effect [12]. In jewelry industry, jewelers and jewelry
designers attach importance to the hardness of gold because gold
with high hardness means precise works and low costs. For choices
of the elements to strengthen pure gold there are many suggestions
which were already presented [10,13e16]. Among them, Si and Ce
are thought to be effective in strengthening pure gold. From dia-
grams of Au-Si [17] and Au-Ce [18]we know Si has very low solu-
bility in gold as well as Ce, but both Si and Ce can strengthen pure
gold by precipitation of secondary phase and grain refinement, the
microalloy of Au-0.045Si-0.048Ce with 56HV and good ductility
was proved to support this viewpoint [19], Zr is also a good
candidate to strengthen pure gold [20]. In Oriental East, there is a
very popular gold alloy named “Chuk Kam”, it means the fineness of
gold is no less than 99.0 wt.% [10], Based on the facts that Si, Ce and
Zr have good effects to strengthen pure gold our group took the
microalloy of Au-0.045Si-0.048Ce as a reference and adjusted Si
composition (from 0.045 wt.% to 0.1 wt.%, more than 0.1 wt.% Si

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jallcom.2017.05.319
0925-8388/© 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V.
616 J. Li et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 721 (2017) 615e621

additions may lead to brittleness of gold alloy) and Ce composition Table 2

(from 0.048 wt.% to 0.06 wt.%) to achieve higher Vickers Hardness, Reduction In Area (RA) and corresponding HV value of Au-Zr-Ce-Si alloy.

we also added Zr (0.78 wt.%) to further strengthen gold. By oper- RA rate Original 40% 60% 70%
ations above we made “Chuk Kam” with Si, Ce and Zr totally less Thickness 1.2 mm 0.72 mm 0.48 mm 0.36 mm
than 1.wt% as additives. From the Au-Zr phase diagram [21] HV value 69HV 113HV 121HV 94HV

0.78 wt.% Zr additions may subsequently change the Hardness of

the alloy by heat treatment because secondary phase will precipi-
tate. Then we focused our attention on the aspects to investigate
how these additions influence microstructures and mechanical
properties of pure gold.
2. Experimental procedures
As raw materials, gold purity is more than 99.99.wt%, Zr, Si, Ce
are all high purity. After weighed Gold was pressed into one sheet.
Zr's shape is conglomeration and has good metallic luster. The
shape of monocrystalline silicon is also conglomeration. Zr and Si
were parted and weighted to proper grams. Laminated Ce pro-
tected by vacuumed plastic bag was parted and weighed quickly
because it was very easy to be oxidized in the air. The original
weights of elements are shown in Table 1. After these preparations
Zr, Si and Ce were wrapped by gold sheet to avoid reactions be-
tween elements and crucible during melting. Wrapped elements
were put into an Al 2 O 3 crucible which was then put into a me-
dium frequency vacuum induction furnace (VIF) to start vac-
uuming process, Vacuuming process and injection of argon gas
lasted for 20min to achieve a super vacuum state and then almost
pure argon atmosphere in the vacuum induction furnace (VIF).
Gold was alloyed with Zr, Si, Ce and cast under argon atmosphere.
The melting temperatures were not tested because the whole
melting process could be observed through a round transparent
glass. The melting process lasted about 10 min. In order to check
whether the alloy was successfully melted the chemical analysis
of the cast alloy was conducted by using inductively coupled
plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and ICP-AES respectively. To
evaluate the mechanical properties of the Au-Zr-Si-Ce alloy,
Vickers hardness tests by High Quality Hardness Tester were
conducted on the condition of 100-g load and a 10-s holding time.
In order to know how heat treatment influence the mechanical
properties of the Au-Zr-Si-Ce alloy, sample was made and put into
a furnace with 950  C to homogenize for 10 min and then 200  C
for 14 h to mainly have Zr precipitations. After quenched the
sample was tested by High Quality Hardness Tester. Samples were
also prepared for microstructural investigation using optical mi-
croscopy (OM) and a Nov.400Nano scanning electron microscope
(SEM) with an energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDS) for
element analysis. The mechanical properties of the alloy are
closely related to the species and distribution of the internal
phases. Differential thermal analysis (DTA) test also applied to the
as-cast alloy using a Joint Analyzer STA449C-QMS403C. The TG-
MG heating and cooling rate was 10  C/min degrees and, the
selected maximum temperature was 1100  C. Before testing the
Joint Analyzer was calibrated using pure gold in an Al 2 O 3 cru-
cible, sample was also tested in an Al 2 O 3 crucible. The heat
microscope observation were also conducted with a confocal laser
scanning (CLS) heating microscope (model Laser-
tec1LM21SVF17SP). The heating and cooling rate was set at 1  C/s.
So the thermal characteristics of the gold-alloy can be revealed
statically and dynamically. In order to disclose the crystal struc-
ture of the alloy X-ray Diffraction (XRD, model X'Pert PRO DY2198)
testing was applied. Sample was milled by Focused Ion Beam(FIB)
and transmission electron microscope (TEM) was used to do more
deeper investigation in the crystal structure.
3. Results
3.1. Chemical analysis
Sometimes, because the difference of elemental vapor pressure
chemical composition of each element may have obvious differ-
ences before and after melting, this will lead to the failure of
alloying. In order to make sure that the chemical composition
reach to our requirements and, at the same time, have objective
components of each elements we use ICP-MS and ICP-AES to do
chemical analysis. The results of original composition, analyzed
composition were shown in Table 1. Because analyzing results are
different when the alloy was analyzed by ICP-MS and ICP-AES
respectively, the results obtained by AES are in good agreement
with those original additions. We accepted the AES results as a
rational composition. The basis of composition adjustment is
which tested results are close to the original chemical composi-
tion. The analysis results indicated that the alloying was
successful.
3.2. Vickers Hardness testing
As it known, The Vickers Hardness of pure gold is approximate
30HV. But the Vickers Hardness of the Au-Zr-Si-Ce alloy is 69HV.
The results show that the addition of Zr, Si and Ce (<1 wt.% totally)
can increase gold hardness significantly. In addition, three samples
were deformed by rolling mill, the deformation rates of Reduction
In Area (RA) are 40%, 60%, 70%, respectively, when deformation rate
reaches to RA70% fractures were found, this indicate that the Au-Zr-
Si-Ce alloy is brittle to some degree. The Vickers Hardness is shown
in Table 2. From the results we can see that deformation can further
increase the Vickers hardness of the sample. The peak hardness
121HV was achieved when the sample was deformed to RA 60%.
Moreover, sample for heat treatment was conducted and then
applied to hardness testing, results showed that the Vickers
Hardness of the Au-Zr-Si-Ce alloy decreased dramatically from
69HV to 47.5HV

Table 1
Original composition, Composition detected by AES and ICP-MS.

Element Original Element Weighs(g) wt.% original composition wt.% by AES wt.% by ICP-MS wt.%adjusted composition

Au 14.931 99.05 99.091 99.2828 99.0836

Zr 0.1175 0.78 0.75 0.63 0.75
Ce 0.0095 0.06 0.063 0.072 0.063
Si 0.0156 0.10 0.096 0.0078 0.096
others 0.0074 0.0074
 J. Li et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 721 (2017) 615e621
Fig. 1. Light Optical microscope image of the Au-Zr-Ce-Si alloy after etching(a) and the Au-Ce-Si alloy after etching(b).
3.3. Microstructure features
3.3.1. Metallographic characteristics
After polished and etched by aqua regia, the sample was applied
to Optical Microscopy (OM) observation. Under OM we can see that
the grains are equiaxed, the average grain size is 20 mm (Fig. 1(a)).
Compared to the Au-0.048Ce-0.045Si micro alloy with an average
grain size approximately 150 mm (Fig. 1(b)) and hardness of 57HV
the grains of our sample are well refined, which indicates that Zr
has further effect in refining grain sizes and in improving the
Vickers Hardness of gold to 69HV.
3.3.2. SEM testing
In order to further reveal the distribution of the elements in the
sample, SEM with EDS was used to analyze the samples. From Fig. 2
we can see chemical composition segregates at the grain boundary
and in the grains. EDS results are shown in Table 3. Au, Si and Ce all
can be detected except Zr, in order to avoid instrument problem we
did EDS analysis in other two analytic centers, there was still no Zr
to be found neither in the indendritic regions nor inside the grains.
This could be an effect of the measurement accuracy of EDS. From
testing results shown in Fig. 2 (aeb) Si contents are 0.26 wt.% and
0.24 wt.% in bright region while Si content are 2.52 wt.%, 2.78 wt.%
and 3.11 wt.% shown in Fig. 2(cee) in the dark region, Si content in
bright region are significantly lower than that of the dark domain;
Ce content in bright region are 0.03 wt.% and 0.31 wt.% shown in
Fig. 2(aeb) while Ce content in dark field are 0.02 wt.%, 0.10 wt.%
and 3.18 wt.% (Fig. 2(cee)).
On the average, Ce concentration in bright region are also lower
than that of in dark region. In order to further discover the mi-
crostructures of Au-Zr-Si-Ce micro-alloy by SEM and how the mi-
crostructures change after Reduction In Area (RA), we chose
Fig. 2(f) before RA and Fig. 2(g) after RA 60% to do some comparison.
We can find from Fig. 2(g) that each grain is prolonged to certain
direction and tends to be parallel each other as well as the pro-
longed grain boundaries. It can be seen that not only the grains but
also the grain boundaries no cracks appear, which indicates that
Au-Zr-Si-Ce alloy can keep its ductility before Reduction In Area
(RA) reaches to 60%. On the other hand, deformation increases the
dislocation density of the alloy, therefore, give rise to the hardness
improvement of the micro-alloy.
3.4. DTA analysis and heating microscope features
3.4.1. DTA testing
DTA is a very useful method to detect thermal characteristics of
materials, The as cast sample was prepared and then DTA was
conducted to find what the thermal changes were caused by the
trace additives of Zr, Si and Ce. This can further confirm the
617
formation of secondary phase in the Au-Zr-Ce-Si alloy. Fig. 3(a)
shows the DTA trace during heating and subsequent cooling. Based
on the measurement, melting and solidification temperatures are
1053.5  C and 1042.5  C, respectively, the melting temperature is
little bit lower to the melting point of pure gold (1064  C). However,
an additional phase transition occurs upon heating at temperature
as low as 365.4  C. Although most of the alloy solidifies at 1042,5  C
the actual solidus temperature is 365,4  C.
3.4.2. Heating microscope features
Using in situ heat microscopy can reveal dynamic changes in the
structure, kinetics of phase transformation, and thermal stability
more visually compared to DTA. Representative images collected at
different temperatures during heating and cooling are shown in
Fig. 3. The surface is identical when the alloy is heated to105.9  C
(Fig. 3(b)), When the temperatures is at 368.6  C (Fig. 3(c)) several
small dots can be observed to emerge, which is an indication of
phase transition beginning, the temperature is well consistent with
the DTA measurement. Then more dots suddenly disembogue at
398.9  C, with increasing temperature, liquid phase transferred
from dots which often pour out from the grain boundaries cover the
surface partly at 621.2  C (Fig. 3(d)) and then the surface melted
completely when the alloy was heated to 854.7  C (Fig. 3(e)).
During the course of cooling solidification can be seen until the
surface is stable at 271.6  C (Fig. 3(f)). Although the grain sizes grow
slightly large when they are subjected to a heating-cooling cycle, it
seems that the additions of trace Zr, Si and Ce can restrain growth of
crystal grains to some degree. This suggests that the Au-Zr-Ce-Si
alloy has good thermal stability.
3.5. XRD and TEM analysis
The mechanical properties have close relationship with its
phase types and phase distributions of the Au-Zr-Si-Ce alloy. There
is no doubt that XRD and TEM analysis can provide scientific data to
settle this problem. Sample preparations for XRD testing were that
part cast ingot of the alloy was reduced to 0.8 mm by rolling mill
and then was fixed to XRD machine, the results are shown in Fig. 4.
From the results we know that Au and Si phases are detected.
Our group also chose Ion Mill (FEI QUANTA 200 3D) to do sample
preparations of TEM, when samples were thinned to certain
thickness most of them are easy to curl, therefore, Ion Mill is not
appropriate to do sample preparations of gold based alloy. Then
Focused Ion Beam(FIB) was applied to get small sample slice from
sample surface by FIB, then the thickness of the alloy is thinned by
FIB to approximate 110 nm, Samples thickness of gold based alloy
more than 140 nm often incur bad penetrability for TEM testing.
TEM was used to get phase types, the results are shown in Fig. 5.
The diffraction patterns in Fig. 5(c) and (d) are gotten from Fig. 5(a)
618 J. Li et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 721 (2017) 615e621

Fig. 2. (aeg). SEM images of the Au-Zr-Ce-Si alloy.

where bright region exists and Fig. 5(b) respectively. Fig. 5(a) in
bright region exhibits 〈001〉FCC phase, Fig. 5(b) exhibits 〈110〉FCC
phase. The lattice constant of FCC phase is large than the lattice
constant because of Zr additions. It seems that sample is uniform
and consists of a FCC solid solution phase, which is different to the
XRD results, this may much to do with the small sample slice milled
almost inside one crystal grain.
4. Discussion
From the literature we know that whichever of trace Zr, Si or Ce
is effective to strengthen fine gold. If we put three elements
(<1 wt.%) together as additions to make gold based alloy they
should work to improve the hardness of fine gold. The process of
alloying is proved successfully because the chemical composition

Table 3
EDS results for the bright and dark phases shown in Fig. 2(aee).

Elements Bright Region in Fig. 2(a) Bright Region in Fig. 2(b) Dark Region in Fig. 2(c) Dark Region In Fig. 2(d) Dark Region In Fig. 2(e)

Si 0.26 (wt %) 0.24 (wt %) 2.52 (wt %) 2.78 (wt %) 3.11 (wt %)
Ce 0.03 (wt %) 0.31 (wt %) 0.02 (wt %) 0.10 (wt %) 3.18 (wt %)
Au 99.71 (wt %) 99.45 (wt %) 97.46 (wt %) 97.12 (wt %) 93.71 (wt %)
total 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00
 J. Li et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 721 (2017) 615e621 619

Fig. 3. DTA curve of Au-Zr-Ce-Si alloy(a), and the microstructure change upon heating to(b) 105.9  C,(c) 398.9  C, (d) 621.2  C, and (e) 854.7  C. (f) Shows microstructures upon
cooling to and 271.6  C.

Fig. 4. The XRD testing results of the Au-Zr-Ce-Si alloy.

620 J. Li et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 721 (2017) 615e621
Fig. 5. TEM images (a-b) of the Au-Zr-Ce-Si alloy and their diffraction pattern (c-d).
after alloying is almost the same to the chemical composition
before alloying which are shown in Table 1. The success to make the
Au-Zr-Si-Ce alloy is the firm foundation to do deep investigation on
how the trace additives influence the microstructures and me-
chanical properties of fine gold. In order to better understand these
influences we should make it clear firstly what the distributions of
elements and phases are.
For the distributions of elements, it can be seen in Fig. 2 clearly
that the analysis by EDS indicates that the dark regions are rich
both in Ce and Si and bright regions are poor in Ce and Si after Zr, Ce
and Si additions. No finding of Zr via EDS has much to do with the
EDS accuracy, as for the distributions of Zr in Au-Zr-Si-Ce micro-
alloy we infer that it is uniform, this conclusion is supported that
the solubility of Zr in Au reaches to 2 wt.% at 800  C [13]. With rapid
cooling the even distribution of Zr in sample could be achieved.
XRD testing detected the existence of Au(FCC) phase (with the
lattice parameter change of gold) and Si phase which also gave
supports that Zr is distributed uniformly.
As we know, elements often form certain phases to influence the
characteristics of materials. Based on the even distribution of Zr in
sample and TEM testing results which confirmed the existence of
solid solution FCC phase we know FCC phase is consisted of Au as
solvent and few Zr as main solute. XRD testing confirmed the ex-
istence of Au and Si phases, but no Ce phase was detected, it may
attribute to its minute quantity. According to Au-Si(Au-Si system is
eutectic and the eutectic transition temperature is 363.3  C) [17]
and Au-Ce [18] phase diagram, solubility of Si and Ce in Au is
nearly zero. Therefore, Si and Ce should have been completely
depleted to form secondary phases and segregated to interden-
dritic spaces and grain boundaries, this result were proved
especially by Fig. 2(f), the BSE image display dark regions
embedded in bright matrix, suggesting the formation of secondary
phase. The formation of secondary phase is further confirmed by
thermal analysis. Fig. 3(a) shows the DTA trace during heating and
subsequent cooling. When the temperature is as low as additional
phase transition occurs. The phase transition temperature 365.4  C
is consistent to the testing results by In Situ Heat Microscopy which
indicated phase transition beginning at 368.6  C (Fig. 3(c)) when
several small dots can be observed to emerge. If we put three
number 365.4  C (DTA testing result), 368.6  C(In Situ Heat Mi-
croscopy testing result) and 363.3  C (the eutectic transition tem-
perature of Au-Si system) we find that they are almost the same.
These testing results give firm evidence that Zr and Ce additions
had no influence on the phase transition of the gold based alloy
initially. Connecting the crystallization process of eutectic Au-Si
with XRD testing results they can infer that Si phase exists in the
type of Beta which segregate to interdendritic spaces and grain
boundaries, when it is heated to eutectic temperature 363.3  C Si
and Au form eutectic phase then become liquid which were
confirmed by DTA and Heat Microscopy, these are why liquid phase
flew out from interdendritic spaces and grain boundaries firstly, but
the appearance of liquid phase at 363.3  C does not mean that the
sample can not keep its form, its melting point is 1053.5  C ac-
cording to the DTA testing. As for application, the thermal charac-
teristic of the sample may make it be used easily in diffusion
welding in Mokume Gane and should not cause some problems in
soldering or laser welding. On the bases of Ref. [10] and Au-Ce, Au-
Si, and Ce-Si phase diagrams and tests above, it is highly possible
that Zr as solute evenly distribute in Au to form alpha Au phase,
beta Si and beta Ce which form mixtures segregate to interdendritic
 J. Li et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 721 (2017) 615e621
spaces and grain boundaries.
As shown in Fig. 1(a), the Au-Zr-Si-Ce alloy consists of equiaxed
grains with an average grain size 20 mm. Compared to the Au-
0.045Si-0.048Ce micro-alloy which has an average grain size
approximately 150 mm in Fig. 1(b), our sample is further refined
significantly and the hardness is improved from 57HV to 69HV
because of Zr addition. Based on crystalline law of metallic mate-
rials, Zr solute forms many crystalline nuclei which prevent each
grain from growing large, which naturally refines the grain size of
fine gold. Due to the very low solubility of Si and Ce, they tend to
segregate and distribute in the grain space and to grain boundaries
even the cooling speed is very high, this was proofed by heat mi-
croscopy testing in Fig. 3 during the heating and cooling circle. The
segregation of Si and Ce likely form many barrier layers to impede
growth of crystal grains. Therefore, 20 mm grain size of the Au-Zr-Si
-Ce alloy is attributed to the effectiveness of Zr, Si and Ce altogether
in refining grain size. By the addition of Zr, Si and Ce the hardness of
pure gold is increased from 30HV to 69HV. When heat treatment
was conducted the hardness of the gold alloy decreased from 69HV
to 47.5HV. It is obvious that heat treatment definitely causes beta Zr
precipitation and the decrease of dissolution quantities of Zr in
gold. In our heat treatment conditions beta Zr precipitation does
not always increase the hardness of the sample, the hardness
changes are mainly attributed to the effectiveness of the both in
strengthening the alloy. Our sample may possess the potential for
age hardening at 300e500  C by the precipitation of the Au4Zr
phase just similar to the precipitation of intermetallic CoSb- and
NiSb phases in strengthening gold [23]. It needs deeper in-
vestigations next time. With subsequent cold rolling to 60% RA,
hardness of the gold alloy can be further improved to 121HV, there
are no cracks to be seen. With cold rolling to 70% RA the gold alloy
has cracks to be found, which indicates the gold alloy is brittle to
some degree. For our sample the as-cast hardness is 69HV which is
little lower than that of the micro-alloy Au - 0.5 Dy (70HV) but
higher than the hardness of the other gold based micro-alloys. If we
compare our sample with “Chuk Kam” Au-1.0Ti (70HV as-cast,
120HV wrought state) [24] we found that the hardness is almost
the same. Unfortunately, the “Chuk Kam” Au-1.0Ti was not widely
used in the jewellery industry today [10]. The annealed hardness of
our sample is 47.5HV which is lower than the annealed gold based
micro-alloy of “High StrengthPure Gold (55HV)” and “PureGold
(63HV)” but higher than the hardness of the other gold based
micro-alloys [10]. From the hardness comparisons we know that
our sample is a good and new “Chuk Kam”. To avoid little brittle-
ness the sample should not be deformed in excess of RA60% in
application.
There are no doubt that grain refinement is one of factors which
lead to 69HV. According to Hall-Petch relation, smaller grains lead
to higher strength, and thus higher hardness [22]. Besides the grain
refinement, if we analyze the phase types and their distribution of
the gold alloy we can easily draw a conclusion that FCC solid so-
lution and second precipitation are the other factors which
contribute to the hardness.
5. Conclusions
We made a gold based alloy by adding trace Zr, Ce and Si which
in total is no more than 1 wt.%. We also did investigation system-
atically using ICP-MS,ICP-AES, High Quality Hardness Tester, Heat
Treatment, DTA, Heat Microscopy, OM,SEM, XRD and TEM. The
conclusions are as follows:
(1) Zr, Si and Ce are all effective to refine pure gold, additions of
1 wt.% Zr, Si and Ce can refine grain size of gold to 20 mm.
621
(2) The additions of trace Zr and Ce can not change the phase
transition temperature of the gold alloy, but trace Si can lead
to the phase transition in 365  C because of the formation of
AuSi eutectic phase.
(3) Gold hardness can be improved from 30HV to 69HV by ad-
ditions of 1 wt.% Zr, Si and Ce. After heat treatment the
hardness of the gold alloy decreased from 69HV to 47.5HV.
The hardness can also be improved to 121HV by subsequent
RA 60% cold rolling. The gold alloy is brittle to some degree.
Compared to the gold-based micro-alloys and “Chuk Kam”
Au-1.0Ti we know our sample is a good and new “Chuk Kam”,
for its application the sample should not be deformed in
excess of RA60% to avoid the brittleness.
(4) Strengthening mechanisms of the Au-Zr-Si-Ce alloy are
mainly FCC solid solution strengthening, second precipita-
tion strengthening and grain refinement strengthening.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by Gemmological Institute, China
University of Geosciences (No. CJHIXM-201606) for Study on the
Thermal Stability of Gold Based Micro-Alloy Alloyed by Metals with
High Melting Point.
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