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Abstract
Antimony has been shown previously to reduce the interfacial energy of copper by adsorbing at interfaces and this paper demonstrates the influence which the phenomenon has on the grain-boundary cavitation processes involved in creep rupture. Copper of two different grain sizes and a copper–0·3 at.-% antimony alloy have been creep-tested to rupture in vacuum at ∼ 0·5 Tm . Antimony was found to increase the minimum creep rate but to lower the rupture ductility. Counts of the number of cavitated boundaries showed that antimony accelerated both bubble- and wedge-type cavitation in copper more than it accelerated the creep rate. It is concluded that the enhanced cavitation in antimonial copper can be ascribed to the reduction in interfacial energies. Some tests on copper-oxygen alloys showed a similar association between poor rupture ductility and interface adsorption.