Densification of W-brass Composites by Infiltration

This paper describes direct infiltration of W-brass with brass and copper at both top and bottom respectively. The infiltration was carried out without pre-sintering of tungsten to obtain a porous tungsten skeleton. The green compacts were sintered in a horizontal tube furnace at the temperature of 11500C under pure hydrogen environment with the heating rate of 50C/min. and cooling rate of 80C/min. The sample infiltrated at the bottom with brass has a relative sintered density of 99.9 %, while the one infiltrated at the bottom with copper has relative sintered density of 99.8 %. Their relative sintered densities were respectively 99.8 % and 99.6 % with top infiltration. The brass infiltrated sample at the top has the highest hardness value (137Hv). XRD studies revealed the presence of elemental tungsten and copper without intermetallic compounds due to lack of mutual solubility between tungsten and copper. This work implies that direct infiltration of W-brass with brass or copper is a promising and time saving method to produce W-brass composites.