Is Bronze Malleable? Need to Know Facts!

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Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin with variable proportions. In this article, we shall discuss the malleability of bronze and its strength in detail.

Bronze is malleable because copper and tin that is largely constituting of bronze matter is malleable. The tensile strength of bronze is 310 MPa and it varies based on the addition of impurities to the bronze. It has high resistance to corrosion and density in the range of 7.5-8.9 g/cm3 and melts at 950 degree Celsius.

Bronze is used as electrical contact, in musical instruments, decorative pieces, sculptures, etc., due to its good corrosion resistance and friction properties. We shall further discuss whether bronze is less malleable than copper, brass, tin, etc. in detail. We shall also ponder on the brittleness of bronze.

Is bronze less malleable than copper?

Copper is an excellent conductor of electricity as compared to bronze. Let us discuss in detail whether bronze is less or more malleable than copper.

Bronze is less malleable than copper because the density of bronze is less compared to copper due to the larger atomic size of tin. Bronze has a more compact structure than copper and is rigid, due to the presence of two different types of atoms while copper has single-sized atoms.

Is bronze more malleable than brass?

Brass is also an alloy of copper with a constituent of zinc. Let us see whether bronze is more malleable than brass.

Bronze is less malleable than brass because the melting point of bronze is more than brass and also the compactness of bronze is more than brass, decreasing the sliding and drifts of atoms within the matter, developing the fractures while stretching at low temperatures. The malleability improves with temperature.

Is bronze less malleable than tin?

Tin has good corrosion resistance properties and is used for coating lead, and zinc, and to make alloys. Let us understand whether tin is more malleable than bronze or not.

Bronze is not less malleable than tin because bronze has high density than tin which has a density of around 7.31 g/cm3. Hence, bronze is more rigid and compact as compared to tin. Also, the melting point of tin is less than bronze.

bronze
Image Credit: Bronze by Fæ (CC-BY-4.0)

Is bronze brittle?

A metal is said to be brittle if it breaks when exposed to stress without showing plastic deformation. Let us see whether bronze is brittle or not.

Bronze is brittle as it has low malleability due to its compact and rigid structure. The compactness is due to the presence of copper and tin having an atomic radius of 132 pm and 217 pm, respectively which helps to fill the voids. There is no chance for the atoms to slide on the application of force.

Conclusion

We can conclude from this article that the bronze is least malleable metal due to its compact and rigid structure. The density of bronze is high and the void density is low. The atoms merely slide to avoid the development of cracks when exposed to stress.

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