Enhancement of mechanical properties for selective platinum group metal alloy systems by age hardening

摘要

A method for increasing the toughness of a platinum-based binary alloy system through heat treatment. An additional embodiment concerns a method whereby the material is first annealed and then heated appropriately to achieve an increase in tensile strength without a decrease in ductility. By selecting a binary composition within its defined miscibility gap and heat treating it for a prolonged period of time at a temperature that is within the miscibility gap but below the recrystallization temperature, an increased tensile strength and ductility is obtained with respect to the initial conditions of the composition. An exemplary embodiment concerns platinum-iridium alloys, particularly those compositions where iridium is present at either 20% or 25%. One particular application of this method concerns the manufacuture of corkscrew fixation devices used in the biomedical industry.