Quantification of the material composition of historical copper alloys by means of neutron transmission measurements

Abstract

Neutron transmission measurements using polychromatic and energy-selective neutron imaging methods were performed with plates of different reconstructed historic copper alloys containing Cu–Sn, Cu–Pb and Cu–Zn. Through comparison with tabulated cross-section values, the alloy component weight fraction could in an accurate quantitative and non-destructive way be retrieved. The results show a good agreement for most of the investigated compositions while the discussion about the remaining discrepancies hints at material inhomogeneities. With this study the way is paved to determine quantitatively in a non-invasive way the composition of unknown historical bronze alloy objects.