Traditional methods for preparing tungsten alloys, such as tungsten-titanium alloy and tungsten-zirconium alloy, mainly include non-consumable arc melting and consumable arc melting. Both of these methods use an electric arc as a heat source to melt tungsten, titanium, and zirconium to form alloys. In these two methods, tungsten as raw material mainly includes tungsten powder and pure tungsten scraps. However, when the tungsten content in the tungsten chips/tungsten powder is higher than 10%, it is difficult for the arc melting method to ensure that all the tungsten chips/tungsten powder are completely melted. In view of the above-mentioned shortcomings, a new arc melting technology will be introduced below. The specific steps for the preparation of tungsten alloy by arc melting method are as follows:
Step 1. Press the tungsten powder raw material to obtain the blank.
Step 2. Break the blank into tungsten powder compact particles.
Step 3. Tungsten powder compact particles are mixed with other metal materials, and the weight ratio of tungsten powder compact particles is 0-40%.
Step 4. After at least two vacuum arc melting, a tungsten alloy ingot with uniform composition and high tungsten content is obtained.
1. The forming pressure during the compaction in step 1 is 50Mpa~l000Mpa.
2. In step 2, the particle size of the tungsten powder compact is 0.1 mm~5 mm.
3. The other metal material in step 3 can be sponge titanium, sponge zirconium, or a mixture of sponge titanium and sponge zirconium.
4. In the arc melting in step 4, after each melting, the ingot is required to cool down to no more than 200°C and be discharged.
5. The arc melting in step 4 can be vacuum consumable arc melting or vacuum non-consumable arc melting.
The method of pre-compacting and crushing tungsten powder raw materials improves the distribution of tungsten powder raw materials and other metal raw materials during the smelting process.
Pre-compacted tungsten powder can greatly reduce the volume of tungsten powder raw materials, and solve the problem that a large proportion of tungsten powder raw materials are difficult to mix with raw materials such as sponge titanium and can also improve the combination of tungsten powder raw materials and other metal raw materials. This enables the loose tungsten powder billet in the arc remelting process to quickly melt and form alloys with the surrounding titanium and zirconium, combined with arc melting, the loose tungsten powder compact during the melting process melts quickly, and the metallurgical reaction with the surrounding alloy elements is also very complete.
In this way, a high tungsten alloy ingot with a uniform composition is obtained, and a high tungsten alloy with a uniform composition, no segregation, and no inclusions with a maximum tungsten content of up to 40% can be obtained.
Thank you for reading our article and we hope it can help you have a better understanding of the preparation of tungsten alloy by arc melting. If you want to learn more about tungsten alloy or other refractory metals and alloys, we would like to advise you to visit Advanced Refractory Metals (ARM) for more information.
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