Microstructures
by George Langford, Sc.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 1966
Copyright©
2005 by George Langford
Unknowns, Non-Ferrous - Set 2 - Third specimen, M.I.T.'s #340
Copper ~50% silver alloy at 200X etched
This is a copper - approximately 50% silver alloy.  You may want to hunt up the copper - silver phase diagram.

My first photomicrograph is at 200X; the next two were made at 500X.  It was difficult to match the colors between the first image and the next two.  The copper rich phase was already reddish in the first image, but at 500X that's about as red as I can make it without really distorting the color rendition.

You may also want to look up where copper and silver lie in the galvanic series.
Copper ~50% silver alloy at 500X etched
This image and the one below both illustrate that the corrosion or oxidation suffered by this specimen is preferentially attacking the metal on one side of the phase diagram.

See if you can check my estimate of the overall composition by considering the area fraction of the two different microconstituents and the area fraction of the two principal phases in these microconstuents.  Area fractions and volume fractions are equivalent.  To get weight fractions, you'll have to figure in the density of each phase.  Hint: Neither element is very soluble in the other except in the liquid state.
Copper ~50% silver alloy at 500X etched
Note the metallic specks in the corrosion products.

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Go on to your analysis of Specimen 4.




























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