Sophie,
The first place I’d stop is the World Gold Council
(http://www.gold.org), for basic Look under “jewellery
technology” – there’s an article there about the various properties
of common gold alloys (including hardness, tensile strength, etc.),
as well as good leads for lots of other
That may be all you need, but if you’re looking for more detailed or
esoteric you might also want to check out the various
Proceedings of the Santa Fe Symposium, if you can get your hands on
them. The folks who have presented at the symposium over the years
have done a tremendous amount of research in this area. (I remember
one very interesting paper on the effect of various minor additives,
such as silicon, magnesium, etc. from oh, 1996 or 1997.) Reading the
Proceedings is an education in metallurgy all by itself.
The Santa Fe Symposium is sponsored by Rio Grande. You can also find
symposium info on the Web site at http://www.santafesymposium.org.
They have the various Proceedings books available for sale, along
with each book’s contents (complete with abstract) to help you
narrow your search.
Good luck!
Suzanne
Suzanne Wade
Writer/Editor
Phone: (508) 339-7366
Fax: (928) 563-8255
@Suzanne_Wade1
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