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Islamic Golden Age brass astrolabe Brass lectern with an eagle. Attributed to Aert van Tricht, Limburg (Netherlands), c. 1500.. Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, in proportions which can be varied to achieve different colours and mechanical, electrical, acoustic and chemical properties, [1] but copper typically has the larger proportion, generally 66% copper and 34% zinc.
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Brass is generally more ductile and stronger than copper and has superior corrosion resistance. [93] These properties make it useful in communication equipment, hardware, musical instruments, and water valves. [ 93 ]
Copper alloys are metal alloys that have copper as their principal component. They have high resistance against corrosion . Of the large number of different types, the best known traditional types are bronze , where tin is a significant addition, and brass , using zinc instead.
(Sphalerite (ZnS with more or less iron), for example, is not uncommon in copper sulfide deposits, and the metal smelted would be brass, which is both harder and more durable than copper.) The metals could theoretically be separated out, but the alloys resulting were typically much stronger than the metals individually.
Copper-based alloys have lower melting points than steel or iron and are more readily produced from their constituent metals. They are generally about 10 percent denser than steel, although alloys using aluminum or silicon may be slightly less dense. Bronze is a better conductor of heat and electricity than most steels.
Examples of substitutional alloys include bronze and brass, in which some of the copper atoms are substituted with either tin or zinc atoms respectively. In the case of the interstitial mechanism, one atom is usually much smaller than the other and can not successfully substitute for the other type of atom in the crystals of the base metal.
Brass, a binary alloy of copper and zinc, has superior mechanical properties compared to its constituent metals due to solution strengthening. Work hardening (such as beating a red-hot piece of metal on anvil) has also been used for centuries by blacksmiths to introduce dislocations into materials, increasing their yield strengths .