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Materials Science & Engineering A: U. Ravi Kiran, S. Venkat, B. Rishikesh, V.K. Iyer, M. Sankaranarayana, T.K. Nandy
Materials Science & Engineering A: U. Ravi Kiran, S. Venkat, B. Rishikesh, V.K. Iyer, M. Sankaranarayana, T.K. Nandy
art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t
Article history: This paper describes the effect of tungsten content on microstructure and mechanical properties of swaged Co-
Received 6 March 2013 containing tungsten heavy alloys with varying tungsten (90W–7Ni–2Fe–1Co, 93W–4.9Ni–1.4Fe–0.7Co and
Received in revised form 95W–3.5Ni–1Fe–0.5Co). With increasing tungsten while tensile strength goes through a maximum, both
10 June 2013
percent elongation and impact energy decrease. Microstructure and fractographic analyses have been carried
Accepted 11 June 2013
Available online 20 June 2013
out in order to explain the trends in mechanical properties. Predominant transgranular fracture of tungsten
grains combined with ductile dimple failure of the matrix in 90% W alloy is responsible for superior properties
Keywords: of this alloy in comparison to the alloy with 95% W. The highest tensile strength attained in 93% W alloy is
Tungsten heavy alloy attributed to predominant cleavage failure of W-grains. The results clearly indicate that the matrix volume
Swaging
fraction, contiguity and matrix mean path greatly influence the mechanical properties of tungsten heavy alloys.
Tensile properties
& 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Impact strength
Fractography
0921-5093/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.msea.2013.06.041
390 U. Ravi Kiran et al. / Materials Science & Engineering A 582 (2013) 389–396
2. Experimental [16] and evaluation was carried out in a 300 J 2 J pendulum type
impact tester at a velocity 5.24 m/s at room temperature. At least
The nominal composition of the alloys prepared in the present five tests were performed for each alloy and the results of the
study is listed in Table 1. Commercially available elemental impact tests are average of 5 data points. Fractography of the failed
tungsten, nickel, iron and cobalt powders, with their purity and tensile and impact test pieces were carried out using Scanning
average particle size listed in Table 2, were used as starting electron microscope (Make: FEI, Quanta-400, Netherlands). Bulk
materials for synthesizing liquid phase sintered WHAs. The pow- hardness of the alloys was measured using Vickers hardness tester
ders were mixed in a ball mill, and reduced at 700 1C in H2
atmosphere for 2 h. The reduced powders were cold iso-statically
pressed into cylindrical rods of 45 mm diameter and 300 mm
length. Pre-sintering of the rods was carried out at 900 1C for 2 h,
in hydrogen sintering furnace and sintering was conducted at
1460 1C for 2 h in hydrogen atmosphere. The tungsten heavy alloy
blanks were subjected to warm die swaging (500 1C) from 38 mm
to 32 mm diameter followed by heat treatment at 1150 1C/2 h/oil
quench. Subsequently another swaging was carried out involving a
reduction in diameter from 32 mm to 28 mm thereby imparting a
total deformation (first plus second swaging) of 41% with an
intermediate heat treatment.
Samples were prepared for microstructural evaluation by stan-
dard metallographic procedures involving cutting, mounting, grind- 50µm
ing and polishing. The size of the tungsten particles, the volume
fraction of the matrix phase, contiguity and matrix mean path of the
sintered WHAs were measured from optical micrographs taken
from several locations of a specimen. The volume fraction was
measured using an image analyzing software. Contiguity defined as
the relative fraction of W–W interfacial area was determined by
placing grid lines over the binary image and counting the number
of tungsten–tungsten and tungsten–matrix intercepts. It was calcu-
lated using the equation CSS ¼ 2NSS/(2NSS+NSL), where NSS and NSL
are the number of W–W grain boundary and W–matrix interface
boundary intercepted, respectively. The matrix mean path width is
defined as the total matrix area divided by two times the difference
between the total length of W grain perimeters and the total length
of W–W grain contacts [14]. 50µm
The X-ray mappings of elements like W, Ni, Fe and Co were
done using an electron probe micro analyzer (EPMA) (Make:
Sx-100, Cameca, France). The matrix composition of all the alloys
was also determined by EPMA. All swaged samples were subjected
to tensile testing. Three specimens were used for each measure-
ment. The tensile specimens were prepared as per ASTM standard
E8M-04 [15] and tested using a Masanto Tensometer. Charpy
impact specimens were prepared as per ASTM standards (E23)
Table 1
Chemical composition of the investigated tungsten heavy alloys.
W 90 93 95 50µm
Ni 7 4.9 3.5
Fe 2.0 1.4 1
Co 1.0 0.7 0.5 Fig. 1. Optical micrographs of (a) WNFC1, (b) WNFC2, and (c) WNFC3 tungsten
heavy alloys.
Table 2
Characteristics of the elemental powders used in the present study.
Powder W Ni Fe Co
(Vickers Instruments, Model: 1965, UK). All tests were conducted WNFC3 alloy which may be due to shape accommodation since
at a load of 30 kg and indentation time of 30 s was maintained. the volume fraction of W phase is higher. Another noticeable
The Vickers hardness value for each sample was an average of five feature in WNFC2 and WNFC3 alloys is the presence of flat
readings taken at random locations throughout the sample of W–matrix interfaces which can be again attributed to shape
10 10 mm2 area. Micro-hardness of the tungsten grains and the accommodation effect as the particles coarsen during liquid phase
matrix phase in as swaged condition were measured separately by sintering. Usually the grains below a critical size tend to shrink and
micro-hardness tester (Make: MAT-SUZAWA, Japan). dissolve while grains above the critical size grow at the expense of
dissolving finer grains. Thus, grain growth is proportional to the
total net flux, Jt, of tungsten atoms between two particles. Grain
3. Results and discussion growth (Jt) can be expressed as follows [17]:
Bw C w
3.1. Microstructure Jt ¼ − ΔGr ð1Þ
r*
Optical microstructures of the heat treated alloys WNFC1 where Bw and Cw are the mobility and concentration of W atoms
(90W–7Ni–2Fe–1Co), WNFC2 (93W–4.9Ni–1.4Fe–0.7Co) and respectively in the liquid matrix phase; rn the effective distance of
WNFC3 (95W–3.5Ni–1Fe–0.5Co) are shown in Fig. 1(a–c). It can diffusion; and ΔGr the molar free energy difference between large
be seen that the W particles in Fig. 1a are smaller and more and small W particles. Coarser grains in WNFC3 alloy is due to
roundish than those in Fig. 1b and c. Also the particles are grain growth that is facilitated by relatively shorter diffusion
interconnected, more so in Fig. 1c. The amount of matrix phase distance of W atoms in the matrix whose volume fraction is low.
is the highest in 90% tungsten alloy (WNFC1) and it decreases with To determine the tungsten concentration in the matrix phase of
increasing tungsten (Table 3). Irregular tungsten grains are seen in the alloys, electron microprobe analysis of the phases (Fig. 2) was
carried out. Results of the analysis given in Table 4 show that the
Table 3
Microstructural parameters of tungsten alloys. Table 4
Chemical analysis (wt%) of matrix phase in tungsten alloys.
Alloy Grain size (mm) Volume fraction Contiguity Matrix mean
(tungsten) (matrix) path (mm) Alloy W Ni Fe Co
W-BSE Ni Fe Co W
W-BSE Ni Fe Co W
W-BSE Ni Fe Co W
Fig. 2. Elemental mapping of WNFM tungsten heavy alloy: (a) WNFC1, (b) WNFC2, and (c) WNFC3.
392 U. Ravi Kiran et al. / Materials Science & Engineering A 582 (2013) 389–396
tungsten solubility in the matrix phase decreases with increase function of tungsten content. Grain size and contiguity increase
in W content of the alloys. The volume fraction (Fig. 3) of the with increase in tungsten content. Increase in contiguity of
tungsten grains measured from the image analysis reveals that as W/W grains with increase in volume fraction of W is well known
the W content increases from 90% (WNFC1) to 95% (WNFC3), the [18–20]. Swaging to 41% deformation leads to increase in the
volume fraction of the tungsten grains increases from 70% to about aspect ratio of the tungsten grains (Fig. 5) in all the alloys, but the
86%. Fig. 4 shows the tungsten grain size and contiguity as a microstructural parameters such as contiguity and volume fraction
remain similar.
Fig. 5. Scanning electron micrograph of swaged (a) WNFC1, (b) WNFC2, and (c) WNFC3 tungsten alloys.
U. Ravi Kiran et al. / Materials Science & Engineering A 582 (2013) 389–396 393
Table 5
Mechanical properties of swaged tungsten heavy alloys.
Alloy Yield strength (MPa) Tensile strength (MPa) Yield ratio (%) Elongation (Pct) Impact energy (J) Bulk hardness (VHN) Micro-hardness
W Matrix
50µm
W-W Fig. 10. Relative fraction of fracture surfaces in tungsten alloys tested under
tension.
W
50µm
W
W-M
50µm
W-W
50µm
50µm
Table 6
Percent of fracture surfaces (tensile specimens) in the swaged tungsten heavy
alloys.
WNFC1 29 64 5 2
WNFC2 36 52 8 4
WNFC3 24 40 20 16
strain and therefore lower tensile strength [24]. Now the relative
proportion of W–W grain boundaries in the fracture surface
depends only on the amount of tungsten. Thus, while higher
ductility in WNFC1 is mainly because of relatively larger propor- 50µm
tion of tungsten cleavage and matrix rupture, more frequent
de-cohesion of W–W and W–M interfaces in WNFC3 is responsible Fig. 11. SEM micrographs of Charpy impact fracture surfaces in (a) WNFC1,
for lower ductility. Thus, the decrease in strength and ductility in (b) WNFC2, and (c) WNFC3 tungsten heavy alloys.
U. Ravi Kiran et al. / Materials Science & Engineering A 582 (2013) 389–396 395
4. Conclusions
Acknowledgments
References
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