Several fundamental issues concerning intermetallic alloys are addressed in this research. Electron energy loss spectrometry (EELS) is used to measure the lithium content in aluminum-lithium intermetallic phases to determine the degree of lithium loss during processing and analysis. A parallel detector provides faster collection of data and better statistics for chemical analysis. The aluminum-rich corner of the phase equilibrium diagram for aluminum-lithium-copper and phase equilibria in the titanium-beryllium system are under investigation. The composition of second phases precipitates and segregation behavior of alloying elements are considered.
