Influence of purity level on the mechanical properties of hot isostatically pressed beryllium

The procurement of a quantity of ultra-pure beryllium powder combined with special handling from powder to billet form resulted in the fabrication of high purity beryllium. The mechanical properties of these billets were contrasted to those of commercial grade billets to determine the influence of impurities and powder processing. The tensile test results show that the strength values are primarily dependent on the grain size in a behavior predictable by the Hall-Petch relationship. Only a fraction of the strength differential can be attributed to metallic impurities in solution. The grain size is controlled by the powder size distribution. The ductility is dominated by both grain size and oxide content. The fine grained, low oxide billets exhibited the highest ductilities. There is evidence to suggest that oxide distribution has a large influence on the ductility. The fracture toughness was highest for the high purity beryllium billets