Quantitative calibration of Neutron Resonance Transmission Imaging in binary copper – tin and ternary copper – tin– lead solution

Historical metallurgy and in particular bronze and other copper alloy metallurgy represents a research topic of strong importance in the study of the artistic and technological evolution of different civilizations. The current proposal represents a further step into the calibration of copper alloys in the frame of the CHNet_BRONZE project. It is part of a group of three proposals, aiming at performing a basic calibration study starting from reference samples of known elemental, phase and microstructural composition. We intend to analyse through NRTI cast ingots made of binary and ternary alloys containing Cu-Sn and Cu-Sn-Pb respectively, within compositional range derived from elemental analysis of historical bronze artefacts from Ancient Greece to Renaissance time.
We expect to be able to improve the quantitative analysis of the NRTI method for the Cu-Sn alloys, while a tentative for ternary Cu-Sb-Pb will be performed to determine if lead signal can be detected for solid samples with the highest lead content.