Searching for new platinum alloys for use in industry under stress and at high temperatures metallurgists at the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. in Moscow have carried out a full investigation of the osmium-platinum system (L.I. Voronova, V.P. Polyakova and E.M. Savitskii, Metally, 1984, (5), 191-193). The phase diagram is a simple peritectic type with no intermediate phase, the maximum solubility of osmium being around 25 atomic per cent.

Alloys with 10 atomic per cent osmium were ductile at room temperature and both wires and foils were successfully prepared, but the most remarkable finding was the very considerable increase in hardness at high temperatures in alloys with up to 27 atomic per cent osmium, even up to 1600°C, the authors stating that this property was increased by from 20 to 40 times. Creep rates at 1200 and 1400°C were also found to be appreciably lower.