Research on hot isostatic pressing sintering behavior of 90W–Ni–Fe–Cu alloy

In order to understand the underlying material evolution during liquid phase sintering (LPS) process in hot isostatic pressing process (HIP), microstructure and mechanical properties of 90 W–Ni–Fe–Cu alloys fabricated at 1400 °C/150 MPa are examined systematically. For 90W-4.2Ni-1.8Fe–4Cu alloy, the typical LPS microstructure, which are spherical W grains uniformly surrounded by continuously distributed γ- (Ni, Fe, Cu) matrix phase with the lowest W–W contiguity of 0.31, is achieved successfully after HIP at 1400 °C/150 MPa. The excellent tensile strength reaches as high as 873 MPa with elongation of 17.3% due to the soft γ- (Ni, Fe, Cu) matrix phase. Moreover, the relationship between the microstructure parameters VM(1−CW−W) and elongation ε are established and analyze the association with dislocation motion in depth through electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) characterization. To our best knowledge, the LPS behavior of tungsten alloy is in-situ revealed by high-temperature confocal scanning laser microscopy (HT-CSLM) for the first time. The current research provides a novel strategy for designing and fabricating powder metallurgy materials by LPS with pressure.