Influence of starting powders on the final properties of W-Cu alloys manufactured through rapid sinter pressing technique

The difficulty of manufacturing industrial W-Cu alloys by traditional techniques encourages the study of processing by advanced powder metallurgy. From among hot pressing techniques, Rapid Sinter Pressing has been selected since it offers short cycles and versatility. The effect on the properties of W-Cu alloys manufactured by this fabrication method has been studied, in which the processing parameters have been fixed (980°C, 150 MPa, 15 bar/s and 40 s). Different particle sizes of the starting powder materials together with various relative alloy compositions have been employed in order to determine the degree of influence on properties such as hardness, density and thermal conductivity. Through a microstructural characterisation of the samples, the best distribution was related to the use of the intermediate size W particles and fine Cu particles. Concerning the properties, the composition based on 80W-20Cu resulted in the best combination.