In this paper, a simple method to fulfill the ideal microstructural design of particle reinforced tungsten (W) alloys with promising mechanical properties is presented. W-0.5 wt.% TiC powders with core-shell (TiC/W) structure are prepared by ball-milling and controlled hydrogen reduction processes. TEM observation demonstrates that the nano TiC particles are well coated by tungsten. The W-TiC powders are sintered by spark plasma sintering (SPS) under 1600 °C. The sintered microstructures are characterized by FESEM and TEM. It is found that the W-0.5TiC alloys obtain an ultra-fine-sized tungsten grain of approximately 0.7 μm. The TiC particles with the original nano sizes are uniformly distributed both in tungsten grain interiors and at tungsten grain boundaries with a high number density. No large agglomerates of TiC particles are detected in the microstructure. The average diameter of the TiC particles in the tungsten matrix is approximately 47.1 nm. The mechanical tests of W-0.5 TiC alloy show a significantly high microhardness and bending fracture strength of 785 Hv0.2 and 1132.7 MPa, respectively, which are higher than the values obtained in previous works. These results indicate that the methods used in our work are very promising to fabricate particle-dispersion-strengthened tungsten-based alloys with high performances.
Keywords: W-TiC alloys; ball-milling method; core-shell structure; mechanical properties; microstructures.