Tungsten Copper Electrode Sintering Mechanism and Densification III

When the temperature further increased to the liquid phase sintering temperature, liquid copper starts to forming, and the particle rearrangement of the tungsten particles occurs by the capillary force of traction at the same time. As previously shows the figure presented in the interior of the copper phase tungsten particles contact with each other rearrangements and contraction.

Therefore, the strength and toughness of powder has been remarkably improved after sintering, which includes two reasons: one is the connection strength between the particles is increasing by the rearrangements, which is known as inter-atomic forces increases in chemistry; another one is the contact surface of the particles inside the body to achieve atomic gravity range of the number is limited, and to further enhance the amplitude of the temperature increase or make atomic diffusion occurs, so that the contact surface into the scope of increasing the number of atomic forces, to form a larger adhesive surface. With the expanding adhesive surface, the strength of sintered compact increases and come into neckformation, this accomplishes the change from particle interface to crystal boundary.

In addition, the shape of pores and the amount or volume changes are also the performance of the sintering strength enhancing. The model of sintering round grain diagram as follow, it shows the change of pore shape. Due to the neckformation grows up, the pores shrink and obturator rounded. In the process of sintering, not only the shape and properties has been altered, the number and the size of pore are also changed. Overall, owing to the shrinkage and gathering of pores, the amount intends to decrease, the average size of pore rise a little and the small pores shrink and disappear faster than the large.

tungsten copper electrode

The main reason of shrinkage is not related to the adhesive surface, which indicates densification is not the signal of the beginning of sintering, only the strength of sinter compact enhancing is the obvious. According to the sintering time, the sintering process of tungsten copper powder can be divided into several stages (there is no a definite demarcation):

1. Adhesive: At the beginning of sintering, Particle contact interface to the boundary changes, sintering neck formed at this stage and grew. Grains within the particles does not change, the particle shape can not change substantially, the whole of the sintered body does not shrink, but also the minimum density increases, but the strength and conductivity of the sintered body increases due to particle bonding surface significantly increased;

2. Neckformation: Atomic particles are bonded to the surface of a large number of migration leading to an expansion of sintering neck, shorten the distance between the particles form a continuous network of pores. Further, since the grain growth, grain boundary movement across the pores, grain boundaries are swept place, a large number of pores disappear, the volume of the sintered body shrinkage, increase the density and strength of this stage is the most essential feature;

3. Spheroidizing and shrinkage: In the late of sintering, sintered body has higher related density, most of the pores are completely divided, closed-cell number increased significantly, pore shape close to spherical and shrinking. At this stage, the entire contraction of the sintered body is still slow, but mainly by reducing the voids disappear and the number of small pores to achieve. The duration of this phase is longer, but still a small amount of residual isolation holes can not be eliminated.

Tungsten Alloy Golf Weights

Golf is one of the outdoor ball sports that to hit the ball into a hole with a bat, reportedly golf originated in Scotland, now has become a symbol of the "noble sport". Since it is a stick hitting sports, then it’s certain that the golf clubs play an important role in the campaign, and golf clubs also are the foundation of golf equipment. How to achieve good performance in sports, the golf club's performance plays a key role, a good golfer, of course, want to have a good golf shot. So it makes many golf clubs manufacturers continue to exploring and innovating for improving the performance of golf clubs.
 
The golf club is composed of three parts, that is ball head, shaft and grip. Ball head is generally made of metal, now it’s often using tungsten alloy counterweight element. (As shown in following pic.)
construction-of-golf-ball-head
As for golf ball head assembly, it includes: 1, golf head body; 2, bottom welding port; 3, double proportion of tungsten alloy counterweight welding joint. The bottom of the golf head counterweight is made of tungsten alloy, which makes the gravity and weight can be evenly distributed in the golf club head, but the thickness of the first golf ball head has not changed, thereby achieving the purpose of a low center of gravity and better balance force, thus to improve the stability greatly. Adding tungsten alloy counterweight can overcome the instability and excessive torque when hitting golf club, so that the users can improve the operation of the various shots as well as to achieve better stability at the same time. Golf tungsten alloy counterweight element usually been made of a screw-shaped for easy disassembly and replacement. Since tungsten alloy counterweight is a high density alloy, which has significant advantages in terms of weight and volume than any other counterweights made of other metals. Besides, tungsten alloy material is safety and environmental friendly, so has been widely used in golf field as well as other fields where need the counterweight members.

 

Tungsten Alloy Counterweight Brief IntroductionⅡ

Lead is a toxic substance that been recorded in most books of all known toxic substances. Ancient books have recorded that using lead pipes to transport drinking water would be dangerous. However, there are still many ways for people to contact with lead, such as the lead in petroleum products, the lead in painting pigment, particularly for some old painting trademarks, the lead content is higher, and had caused many deaths. Therefore, some countries, particularly formulate the environmental standards that the lead content of painting pigments should be controlled within 600PPM. Compared to this, tungsten alloy is non-toxic pollution, and has a high density, high melting point, high hardness, high wear resistance, high ultimate tensile strength, high elongation, good machinability, high impact resistance and crack resistance and some other characteristics, therefore tungsten alloy counterweight can be widely used in various fields.
 
Tungsten alloy block is an ideal material for the production of tungsten alloy counterweight, but using conventional production process is difficult to produce the desired tungsten alloy blocks. However, the injection molding technology is the best preparation technology for manufacturing tungsten alloy blocks. The injection molding technology combines a variety of advantages, such as complex three-dimensional structure, high-density, high hardness, high accuracy and so on. Small volume but high-precision complex parts can also use the injection molding techniques. The relative density of tungsten alloy produced by the injection molding technology can up to 95% -98%. High density means can significantly reduce the size of components. Tungsten alloy block can control the weight distribution, as well as increase the sensitivity of the control mechanism.
tungsten-alloy-counterweights

Tungsten Alloy Counterweight Brief IntroductionⅠ

Counterweight is one kind of weights that used to increase the weight of somethings in order to maintain balance. It can generally be called as counterbalance weight or aggravation block when designing products in the industrial. Counterweights have been widely used, we need to use counterweights when designing and manufacturing many products, such as larger elevator weights, machinery weights, furniture weights, etc., but for the small volume weights, they would be used in electronics weights, appliances weights and a variety of pedestal weights (such as table lamps weights, floor lamps weights, the frets pedestal weights, paper towel holder weights, knife block weights, toy distribution weights and fans pedestal weights, etc.). Counterweights are used widely but in fact it has only one but most important effect, that is to balance the weight of products. In addition, the counterweights also have some assemble effects, for example, they can improve the quality and grade of products. Thus, the counterweights are indispensable in some products. Producing weights with different materials would have different usefulness, and the performance is also different.
tungsten-alloy-counterweights
The counterweights that manufactured with lead raw materials have wide applications in people's lives, and also exerted great effects. However, with the development of socio-economic level, people now does not limit their fields of vision  on the excessive restrictions production, protection of the environment and governance has become an important emphasis. At this time, tungsten alloy came into our lives and replaced the lead to become the best raw material which is most suitable for the manufacturing of counterweights. 
 
Why tungsten alloy has such an important role in the production of the counterweight? The reason is that tungsten alloy is a kind of alloys which basically made with tungsten and mixed with some other metals, and tungsten has the highest melting point of all metals, which makes it has a high temperature strength and creep resistance as well as excellent thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity and electron emission performance. The important reason for tungsten alloy becoming the most suitable material to making counterweights is that it has large specific gravity and non-polluting. The same volume of tungsten and lead, compared to lead, the density of tungsten is higher, its specific gravity is greater, and therefore it’s more suitable for the applications fields where need the counterweights with small volume but good performance, such as yachts, racing, golf, spacecraft and so on.

 

Tungsten Alloy Radiation Shielding Materials Application in γ-raysⅡ

As can be seen from the sketch of the study, the radioactive source can be shaped  into narrow beam source by the tungsten alloy collimator, when passing through the absorption medium, its strength will be weakened due to the interaction of both sides, and this phenomenon can be known as γ-rays absorbing. The absorption capacity of γ-ray is close to the density of the absorbing medium.It means that the density is higher, the atoms and electron of per unit volume is more,then the irradiating rate of γ-ray exposure rate will decay more and more rapidly.
tungsten-alloy-radiation-shielding-experimental-device
As we all know, tungsten is the highest melting point, maximum density (twice than steel) material of all metals. Therefore, tungsten alloy as a γ-ray radiation shielding material is most suitable. Previously, large radiation shielding member was generally made of lead alloys. But as a radiation shielding member, lead has many malpractices, such as low melting point, poor hardness, and it’s easy to cause secondary bremsstrahlung and so on. Besides, lead is a heavy metal pollution source that could easily cause heavy metal poisoning. As a new radiation shield material, tungsten alloy radiation shielding material have many advantages compared to lead: 1, no secondary bremsstrahlung; 2, hardness; 3, good radiation shielding effect than lead under the same thickness; 4, good radiation resistance and corrosion resistance.
 
Since tungsten alloy has high density, strong anti-γ-ray capability, high strength, non-toxic in environmental protection and some other advantages, and it can greatly reduce the dose rate of photon with smaller thickness under a smaller environment, thus becoming the new researching and developing direction of ray-shielding materials.

Tungsten Alloy Radiation Shielding Materials Application in γ-raysⅠ

γ-rays is released from atomic decay cleavage. While it can be used to kill cancer cells and achieve the effect of cancer treatment in the medical, but it’s also likely to cause DNA breakage of intracellular organism and thus cause cell mutation, lacking of hematopoietic function, and cause cancer or other diseases, like a double-edged sword. γ-ray wave length is very short, but its penetrating force is extremely strong, carrying with high-energy.
 
Although γ-ray has a wide range of uses, but human beings will induce such as leukemia, thyroid disease, bone tumors and other malignant diseases if irradiating with a large dose of γ-rays for a long time. For pregnant women, it may cause gene mutation and chromosomal aberration, result congenital malformations, miscarriage, stillbirth, infertility and other diseases. If γ-rays exposure to the substances like metal utensils, soil or food for a long-term, it will make these non-radioactive substances induced radioactivity, and cause harm to humans. Therefore, it is inevitable to shield γ-ray.
 
The power of γ-ray mainly shows in the following two aspects: 1, The large energy of γ-ray. Because of its very short wavelength and high frequency, therefore γ-ray has a very large energy. High-energy γ ray does great damaging effects on the human bodies, and increased with the irradiating dose of γ-ray. 2, Strong penetrating force of γ-ray. When the human body is irradiating by γ-ray, γ-ray can enter the body's interior, and have an ionization effect with the cells, and erode the organic molecules in vivo. Therefore, we must find a safe and reliable protection material for shielding γ rays. However, tungsten alloy shielding material can satisfy the requirements with safety and reliance, and its high-density, high radiation absorption capacity has been widespread concerned.

Blue Tungsten Oxide Preparation out of Ammonium Paratungstate Self-Reduction

Thermal cracking: Modern high-pressure thermal cracking operates at absolute pressures of about 7,000 kPa. An overall process of disproportionation can be observed, where "light", hydrogen-rich products are formed at the expense of heavier molecules which condense and are depleted of hydrogen. The actual reaction is known as homolytic fission and produces alkenes, which are the basis for the economically important production of polymers.
 
Thermal cracking is currently used to "upgrade" very heavy fractions or to produce light fractions or distillates, burner fuel and/or petroleum coke. Two extremes of the thermal cracking in terms of product range are represented by the high-temperature process called "steam cracking" or pyrolysis (ca. 750 °C to 900 °C or higher) which produces valuable ethylene and other feedstocks for the petrochemical industry, and the milder-temperature delayed coking (ca. 500 °C) which can produce, under the right conditions, valuable needle coke, a highly crystalline petroleum coke used in the production of electrodes for the steel and aluminium industries.
 
William Merriam Burton developed one of the earliest thermal cracking processes in 1912 which operated at 700–750 °F (371–399 °C) and an absolute pressure of 90 psi (620 kPa) and was known as the Burton process. Shortly thereafter, in 1921, C.P. Dubbs, an employee of the Universal Oil Products Company, developed a somewhat more advanced thermal cracking process which operated at 750–860 °F (399–460 °C) and was known as the Dubbs process. The Dubbs process was used extensively by many refineries until the early 1940s when catalytic cracking came into use.
 
Hydrogen produced in the cracking process of heated ammonium paratungstate is used for the self-reduction of the cracked products. This paper studies the impacts on blue tungsten oxide's properties by the major reduction parameters,including temperature and rotary kiln speed without Ammonia or hydrogen. The application of this technology to environmental protection,energy conservation and production safety are focused.

Ammonium Paratungstate Detinning Processes

Various detinning processes of ammonium paratungstate mainly focus on removing tin acid radical(SnO32-) in sodium tungstate solution. It is depends on the characteristics of tungsten concentrates our country use currently. Tin impurities of tungsten concentrates  mainly occurs as SnO2, tin mainly occurs as tin acid radical in the alkali immersion from ore alkali decomposition :

SnO2 + 2OH -= SnO32- + H2O.

Currently, in the occasion that China's tungsten smelting uses high quality tungsten concentrates, since the content of tin impurities in the ore is not high (0.1% to 0.4%) and it’s a monomorphic form mainly as SnO2, the content of tin impurities in leaching solution is not too high. High-quality products APT can be produced if any of detinning processes is taken in tungsten smelting process. Of course, each tin process also has negative impacts, primarily the balance between detinning rate and tungsten loss rate. Although some processes have higher detinning rate, tungsten loss is still serious. In addition, each process has shortcomings such as complex process. Also,there’re great impacts on the production cycle, production cost and process route complexity since the addition of detinning process.

At the same time, it is worth noting that, with the increasing scarcity of high-quality tungsten concentrates available for the exploitation of resources to maintain the tin content and other impurities increasing, more and more complex forms, tungsten concentrate in tin Occurrence Sometimes no longer SnO2-based, but in the state of tin SnO2 and sulfide (Stannite Cu2FeSnS4; SnS2 tin sulfide, etc.) coexist. When alkali leaching by reaction:

3SnS2 + 6OH= 2SnS32- + Sn (OH) 62-,

It’s found that thiosulfate tin ions (SnS32- ) appear in sodium tungstate solution while the content of tin acid radical increased . In the current production, thiosulfate tin ions are the main reason for excessive tin impurities in product APT. Therefore, the development direction of detinning process should focus on removing thiosulfate tin ion, taking into account not long tungsten smelting process, without reducing the tungsten recovery. This study is little domestic, overseas it has also not been reported. This author has conducted systematic research to study the existing ratio of tin thiosulfate solution acid radical relationship with the pH of the solution, thio tin acid radical removal methods, but only in the exploratory stage, but also we hope to have more metallurgy workers joined the ranks of this study.

APT

Radioactive Source Species With Tungsten Alloy Radiation Shielding Materials

The development of economy impels many countries to explore in the new energy sectors more and more frequent. Discovery and exploration of new energy sources will also lead humanity to enter a new developing pattern. Nuclear energy as a clean and modern economic energy can be mass produced, but also accompanied by a series of nuclear waste radioactive source pollution.The common radioactive sources in nuclear reactor project are α-rays, β-rays, γ-rays, neutrons, protons, heavy hydrogen nucleus and so on. They are with highly radioactivity, and do great harm to the human bodies. In addition, there are a number of radioactive substances, such as fission products (FP) radiation and their decay products (decay radiation) etc. Among these radioactive sources, γ-rays and neutrons is harmful to human bodies second to none, because both have stronger penetrating force. In addition to harm the human beings, radioactive source also can go through the surrounding objects so that makes the original non-radioactive objects become another radioactive medium. Therefore, when designing nuclear radiation shielding, γ-ray and neutron shielding should be first concerned.
 
For γ-rays, if the atomic number of radiation shielding material is higher, the radiation shielding effect will be better, such as iron, tungsten, lead, depleted uranium, concrete, brick, ionized water and so on. Especially for tungsten alloy, which is the best material, that can used as radiation shielding. But for neutrons, because of its cross section will change complexly with the elements and the ability of the neutron, so it doesn’t mean that the higher the material atomic number is,the greater the radiation shielding effect will be. On the contrary, a small atomic number elements can make neutron elastic scattering radiation dose significantly reduced. The study found that the tungsten alloy with 10cm thickness can shield the neutron radiation shielding rate of 93%.
tungsten-alloy-shielding-container

 

Tungsten Alloy Radioactive Source Container

In recent years, with the gradual development and maturity of China's scientific research and technology, the radioisotopes and radiation application technology have been developed rapidly, but coming along with the safety problems which caused by radioactive sources. As we all know, radioactive source does great harm to human being’s health and our survival environment. According to the degrees of harms, the radioactive sources can be divided into five categories from high to low. One level is the most harmful class of radioactive sources, radioactive fifth is the smallest. So, what is radioactive resource? Radioactive source is a solid radioactive material that should be permanently sealed in a tight container (except the research reactors and power reactors nuclear fuel cycling). In other words, this harmful solid radioactive material need to be stored in sealed containers, but how to ensure the radioactive sources that won’t leak from this container, it makes the choice of radioactive container become a vital problem.
 
According to the preliminary statistics of authorities, China's existing wasting radioactive sources are about 25,000, and there were 2000 pieces existing in the environment in where the human beings live, and had been out of control, threatened to human health and safety like an invisible bomb.
 
Tungsten alloy (containing tungsten content of 85% to 99%) is a kind of alloy that constituted by adding a small amount of cobalt, nickel, copper, iron elements and so on, it also can be called heavy alloy or high density tungsten alloy. As the name suggests, tungsten alloy has a high density, which making it become the perfect materials for producing radioactive source containers. Because if the material has a high density, it can better prevent the leakage of radioactive source, then it also can eliminate safety hazards and make the radioactive source kept safely in the container.
tungsten-alloy-shielding-container

 

 

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