from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
The historical organ pipes used to be manufactured from tin and tin-lead alloys. The tin-rich organ pipes usually contained copper as alloying elements, which make them similar to modern lead free soldering materials. The historical organ pipe materials can be used as model materials for natural ageing of soldering materials. Tin pest is a term for modification from white tin to grey tin, which leads to degradation of tin or tin-rich alloys. The influence of individual alloying elements has not been reliably described, yet. Not only on the concentration of the alloying element, but also the distribution may play the important role. In dependence on heat-treatment, the Cu can be in the Sn matrix present in these forms: i) as large intermetallic particles after casting (Cu6Sn5), ii) as solid solution after homogenization annealing and iii) as fine precipitates after ageing. The microstructure of the real historical organ-pipes material was studied and it was proven that contradictionary to the equilibrium phase diagram the Cu enriched was observed.
Keywords: Metallurgy, tin, copper, tin pest, TEM© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.