ISIS Neutron and Muon Source Data Journal

Looking for the elusive alpha tin phase

Abstract: The characteristics of metal alloys have always been considered crucial for the sound quality of organ pipes. Tin-rich materials were studied for conservation issues, like the so-called “tin pest” -a consequence of a tin crystal structure change. “Tin pest” is indeed an allotropic transformation of tin, from beta-phase (tetragonal structure) to alpha-phase (diamond-cubic structure). This phase transformation, spontaneous below 13.2 °C, is strongly accelerated by lower temperatures. Recently, we studied a wide set of tin-based pipe fragments but no alpha-phase was found. We thus propose to study a real and different commercial specimens, as a function of the temperature, after 24 hours at -50°C. Our measurements want to infer information on the degradation process, in order to make an assessment of neutron techniques as a diagnostic tool the conservation of organ pipes.

Public release date: 25 October 2022

Principal Investigator: Professor Daniela Di Martino
Experimenter: Dr Antonella Scherillo
Experimenter: Professor Giuseppe Gorini
Local Contact: Dr Ivan da Silva Gonzalez
Experimenter: Dr Enrico Perelli Cippo

DOI: 10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1720120-5

Parent DOI: 10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1720120

ISIS Experiment Number: RB1720120

Part Number: 5

Date of Experiment: 24 October 2019

Publisher: STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source

Data format: RAW/Nexus
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Data Citation

The recommended format for citing this dataset in a research publication is as:
[author], [date], [title], [publisher], [doi]

For Example:
Professor Daniela Di Martino et al; (2019): Looking for the elusive alpha tin phase, STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1720120-5

Data is released under the CC-BY-4.0 license.