Tungsten-Copper Composite Fabricated by Hot-shock Consolidation

High-temperature shock consolidation and under-water shock wave are two effective methods to eliminate cracks generated when shock wave propagating the powder bed. In this work, a novel assembly consists of a chemical furnace and a water column was used to fabricate tungsten-copper composites. The heat released from the reaction of a SHS reaction mixture was used as chemical furnace to preheat the precursor powder. The water column as well as the explosive attached was detached from the furnace by a solenoid valve fixed on the slide guide. So the explosive and water column was kept cooling during the preheating process. The W-Cu powders with the grain size of 2 mu m were first blended with mass ratio of 9:1 by mechanically alloying in a planetary ball mill. Prior to application of shock wave, the elemental powders were preheated at different temperatures, i.e. the highest temperature up to 1000 degrees C. The intensity of the shock wave loading was under 10GPa. The consolidated specimens were then characterized by microstructure analysis and micro-hardness testing. The different micromechanical behaviors of W and Cu phase in the consolidated sample were studied by using in situ high-energy X-ray diffraction technique. The result showed that a fine-grained 90W/10Cu composite with no cracks could be compacted to a density of 16.44g/cm3 by hot-shock consolidation at a preheating temperature of 970 degrees C.