Tungsten-copper composite fabricated by hot-shock consolidation

High-temperature shock consolidation and under-water shock wave are two effectivemethods 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 fabricatetungsten-copper composites. The heat released from the reaction of a SHS reaction mixture wasused as chemical furnace to preheat the precursor powder. The water column as well as theexplosive attached was detached from the furnace by a solenoid valve fixed on the slide guide. Sothe explosive and water column was kept cooling during the preheating process. The W-Cupowders with the grain size of 2μm were first blended with mass ratio of 9:1 by mechanicallyalloying in a planetary ball mill. Prior to application of shock wave, the elemental powders werepreheated at different temperatures, i.e. the highest temperature up to 100°C. The intensity of theshock wave loading was under 10GPa. The consolidated specimens were then characterized bymicrostructure analysis and micro-hardness testing. The different micromechanical behaviors of Wand Cu phase in the consolidated sample were studied by using in situ high-energy X-ray diffractiontechnique. The result showed that a fine-grained 90W/10Cu composite with no cracks could becompacted to a density of 16.44g/cm3 by hot-shock consolidation at a preheating temperature of970°C.