The Top 10 Reasons Why Tungsten Is Better Than Lead
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- Category: Tungsten Information
- Published on Saturday, 08 June 2013 15:53
1. Environmentally Friendly
Tungsten is much more environmentally friendly than lead. In fact, according to the U.S. Government's Priority List of Hazardous Substances, lead is the second most hazardous substance (Arsenic being #1).
2. Higher Density
Lead has a density of about 10 g/cc, but with tungsten, you can achieve densities of up to 18.6 g/cc! Higher density means smaller parts for the same weight.
3. Non-Toxic Alternative
Lead has already been phased out of kids’ toys, electronics, and electrical equipment. New regulations for lead paint removal go into effect in April 2010. At some point all lead use will be phased out, so why not get a jump on finding environmentally-friendly lead alternatives, like tungsten?
4. Hardness
Tungsten comes in many alloys, from a machinable alloy to a diamond-hard one. The alloy can be tailored to each specific application. Wear resistance and heat resistance are just two of hundreds of suitable applications.
5. Highest Melting Point
Despite its incredible hardness, tungsten can still be melted. However, at 6170°F (3410°C), tungsten has the highest melting point of any metal.
6. Versatility
Due to its high density and high melting point, tungsten is as versatile as lead, if not more so. Tungsten can be used as a lead replacement for a variety of applications:
a.Ammunition (tungsten shot),
b.Industrial (flywheels, cases, dies, rods, plates)
c.Jewelry (rings, bracelets)
d.Radiation Shielding (the protective mats radiologists use when taking your x-rays)
e.Sport (darts, golf clubs, fishing weights and lures)
f.Stationery (the tips used in ballpoint pens)
g.Weights (balance weights, wheel weights)
7. Cheap Disposal
Since Tungsten is environmentally friendly, there, are no federally mandated disposal costs associated with getting rid of tungsten, as there are with lead.
8. Recyclable
Tungsten parts are manufactured from powder using a powder metallurgy process. This allows each tungsten part to be recycled back to its original powder form. The recycling cost is relatively small and the process is well known and available in every country. There is a very small loss in tungsten recycling.
9. Highly Corrosion Resistant
Like lead, tungsten has excellent corrosion resistance, and is only attacked slightly by most mineral acids.
10. Appearance
Tungsten alloys can be plated and polished, thereby offering a wide variety of finishes.
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Density of WHA
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- Category: Tungsten Information
- Published on Saturday, 08 June 2013 14:45
Density of WHA (tungsten heavy alloy) is the single most important property that makes WHA the material of choice for a given application. The selection of a specific composition for a given density application may ultimately be made on the basis of concurrent mechanical property requirements or sintering considerations, unless a specific value of density is critical. WHAs can approach the density of pure tungsten and DU without the high cost of the former or the licensing and special handling requirements of the latter.
As is true with most mechanical designs, the optimum design is the one that adequately addresses all critical parameters and offers the best compromise of the remaining options. As the density of WHA is increased, the available ductility decreases. Alloy density varies according to tungsten content, as can be seen in the following table of Tungsten Products standard alloys.
TP Alloy* |
Composition (Wt. %) |
MIL-T-21014D Classification |
Typical Density (g/cc) (lbs/in2) |
Magnetic Permeability (m) |
SD170 |
90W-(3Ni/Fe) |
Class 1 |
17.14 0.619 |
>6.0 |
Dens21 |
90W-(7Ni/Fe) |
Class 1 |
17.20 0.622 |
1.02-1.05 |
SD175 |
92.5W-(3Ni/Fe) |
Class 2 |
17.62 0.637 |
4.5-5.0 |
Dens23 |
92.5W-(7Ni/Fe) |
Class 2 |
17.66 0.638 |
1.02-1.05 |
SD180 |
95W-(3Ni/Fe) |
Class 3 |
18.13 0.655 |
4.0-4.5 |
Dens25 |
95W-(7Ni/Fe) |
Class 3 |
18.16 0.656 |
1.01-1.02 |
SD185 |
97W-(3Ni/Fe) |
Class 4 |
18.57 0.671 |
2.5-3.0 |
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Tungsten Alloy EFP Warhead & Shaped Charge Liners
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- Category: Tungsten Information
- Published on Saturday, 08 June 2013 14:17
A typical tungsten alloy EFP (explosively formed penetrators) warhead mainly consists of shaped charge liners, high explosive, shells and initiation system. The shaped charge liners and explosive component are usually fixed by pressure screw.
When the tungsten alloy EFP exploding, the shaped charge liners squeeze, roll over and stretch into penetrators whose shape is expected and speed up to 2000m/s under the effect of Chapman-Jouguet pressure. It can damage efficiently to armor target in the range of charge diameter whose bursting height is more than 1000 times. The maximum depth of penetration can reach more than one time charge diameter. So it is possible to attack the weakest top of armor vehicle from far (long) distance.
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Why Use WHAs?
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- Category: Tungsten Information
- Published on Friday, 07 June 2013 11:17
WHAs (tungsten heavy alloys) provide a unique combination of density, mechanical strength, machinability, corrosion resistance, and economy. Consequently, WHAs are widely used for counterweights, inertial masses, radiation shielding, sporting goods, and ordnance products. These versatile materials provide distinct advantages when compared to alternate high density materials, as seen in the table below.
Material |
Density (g/cc) |
Tensile Strength |
Stiffness |
Machin- ability |
Toxicity |
Radio- activity |
Cost |
WHA |
17.0-19.0 |
moderate |
high |
excellent |
low |
none |
moderate |
Lead |
11.4 max. |
very low |
very low |
very low |
high |
none |
low |
Uranium |
18.7-18.9 |
moderate |
medium |
special |
high |
present |
high |
As can be seen from these data, WHA overcomes the toxicity, deformability, and inferior density of lead and its alloys. Likewise, it can provide equivalent density to depleted uranium (DU) but without the special machining considerations (necessary due to its pyrophoricity) and licensing requirements for a radioactive substance. WHA is truly the material of choice for high density applications. These unique alloys provide the designer with many new freedoms.
There is one special category of density applications in which WHAs should not be used. For applications in which the service temperature will exceed ~300°C, slight surface oxidation will occur in air. It is important to note that at service temperatures exceeding ~500°C, WHA strength will fall off rapidly even in a protective atmosphere. For these special cases, pure tungsten may provide a better option. If reactive atmospheres are present in combination with elevated temperature, the best choice for very dense materials will be the platinum group metals – but at extremely high cost.
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Introduction to WHA
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- Category: Tungsten Information
- Published on Friday, 07 June 2013 11:12
Tungsten heavy alloy (WHA) are ideally suited to a wide range of density applications, offering a density approaching that of pure tungsten but without the very costly processing and inherent size and shape limitations of the former. WHAs are produced by a powder metallurgy (P/M) technique known as liquid phase sintering (LPS), in which completely dense, fully alloyed parts are formed from pressed metal powders at a temperature less than half the melting point of pure tungsten. While sintered steel and copper alloy parts commonly contain significant residual porosity that may require polymeric infiltrants to seal, sintered WHAs have a nonporous surface.
WHA parts are manufactured from very fine, high purity metal powders – typically tungsten, nickel, and iron. The blended metal powder is compacted under high pressure (up to 30 ksi) to form a specific shape that is very close to the geometry of the final part. By utilizing this near net shape forming approach, economy is realized by the elimination of excess material and the time and energy necessary to remove unwanted stock from mill shapes. Pressed parts are then subjected to high temperature sintering in hydrogen. As the parts are slowly heated, the hydrogen reduces metal oxides present and provides a clean, active surface on each of the very small metal particles. As temperature increases further, chemical diffusion takes place between particles. Neck growth occurs between particles, and surface energy drives pore elimination and part densification. The pressed part shrinks uniformly, with about 20% linear shrinkage (equating to approximately 50% volumetric shrinkage) being typical. Once the temperature is sufficiently high to form the liquid phase, any remaining densification occurs very quickly as the alloy assumes a "spheroidized" microstructure by a mechanism know as Ostwald Ripening. The sintered structure of a common commercial WHA is two-phase, consisting of a linked network of tungsten spheroids contained in the ductile matrix phase.
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Introduction to Tungsten
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- Category: Tungsten Information
- Published on Friday, 07 June 2013 11:06
The name "tungsten" is derived from the Swedish term meaning "heavy stone". Tungsten has been assigned the chemical symbol W after its German name wolfram. While sometimes regarded as a scarce or exotic metal, its abundance in nature is actually about the same as that of copper. The largest known tungsten reserves are in mainland China, though plentiful reserves also exist in North America.
Tungsten has the highest melting point (3410°C or 6170°F) of all metals. The extremely high melting point of pure tungsten makes all the common manufacturing techniques used for metals such as iron impractical. Specialized methods make possible the processing of pure tungsten into rod, sheet, and wire for a wide variety of high temperature applications including incandescent lamp wire, TIG welding electrodes, and high temperature heat shielding.
Another important industrial property of tungsten is its high density of 19.3 g/cc (0.70 lbs/in3). In addition to high gravimetric density, its high radiographic density makes it an ideal material for shielding or collimating energetic x- and g-radiation. For such applications, tungsten is commonly alloyed in order to circumvent the extremely high processing temperatures that would otherwise be required to melt and cast the pure metal.
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Industry Specifications for Tungsten Alloys
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- Category: Tungsten Information
- Published on Friday, 07 June 2013 10:58
MIL-T-21014D |
SAE AMS-T-21014 |
ASTM B777-07 |
In August of 1986 the last revision of the “Proposed Military Specification” for Tungsten Base Metal, High Density (MIL-T-21014D) was issued. In use for many years this specification defined the requirements for four classes of machinable, high density tungsten base metal produced by consolidating metal powder mixtures comprised primarily of tungsten. The alloy classes differed in tungsten content and density. The specification defined four slightly magnetic tungsten alloys (containing Ni-Fe binders) and three nonmagnetic tungsten alloys (containing Ni-Cu binders) in terms of their composition, mechanical properties, and machinability. ASTM approved a standard containing essentially the same content in 1987. The most recent revision of the ASTM standard (ASTM B777-07) was published in November of 2007 and is the active standard for tungsten alloys at this time. A third standard was introduced in August of 1998 by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE Technical Standard AMS-T-21014). All three of these standards contained the same set of mechanical properties for the various alloy classes. These properties are summarized in the table below.
Applications of 3D Printing Technique in Aviation Industry (II)
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- Category: Tungsten Information
- Published on Friday, 07 June 2013 09:00
On May 29th 2013, there was an article in South China Morning Post of Hong Kong named as 3D Printer Promotes the Development of Chinese aircraft. For aircraft enthusiasts, it is not a dream that use computer and 3D printer to manufacture a small plastic aircraft. How about manufacturing a real aircraft?
The Chinese scientists and aeronautical engineer consider that can be realized. They have began to use 3D printer to manufacturer refractory metal aircraft parts without molding, forging, assembling or other traditional manufacturing processes.
3D printing, also called as laser rapid prototyping is a newly developing manufacturing technique. 3D printers can transform blueprint on computer into material object directly by overlying materials layer by layer until finished products.
Refractory metal aircraft parts, being manufactured by 3D printing technique have been widely used for C-919 the first Chinese civil aircraft, J-15 the first carrier fight, J-16 multipurpose fighter-bomber, J-20 the first Chinese stealth fighter and J-31 the fifth generation fighter.
Traditional aviation industry not only spends too much time, and it also wastes a lot of materials. In generally, only 10 percent of raw materials are utilized. The rest are lost during the processes of molding, forging, cutting and burnishing. F-22 fighter which developed by Lockheed Martin in the U.S. needs 2796kg titanium alloy. In fact, only 144kg is utilized.
Sidney Wong, the associate dean of Enterprise Development Department in Hong Kong Polytechnic University showed that 3D printing technique could accelerate the development of Chinese new generation aircraft. He said, “3D printing technique can save time and materials. Researchers can print refractory metal aircraft parts directly in a short time. The cost of prototype is low without molding or any other complicated traditional processes and scientists can manufacture constantly more repetitions for test.”
Professor Wang Huaming, the expert of aerial material in Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics considered that Chinese 3D printing technique had exceeded the U.S. because the U.S. could only manufacture small products by using the technique. However, Luo Jun, the CEO of Asian Manufacturing Association in Beijing considered that the Chinese printing technique still fell behind the West.
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Tungsten Alloy Shielding Tube & EFP Test
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- Category: Tungsten Information
- Published on Thursday, 06 June 2013 18:28
There are various kinds of test for penetration of EFP (explosively formed penetrators). The first method is utilizing impulse X radiography to know the speed and attitude of EFP before or after penetrating, residues of EFP after penetrating and the fragments after penetrating target. Because strong flashing light and smoke accompany with the process of penetrating. For that, the only method to know the influence of EFP on target and the situation after penetrating target is adopting X-ray radiography. So impulse X-ray radiography has significance for research on penetrating mechanism of EFP. However X-ray may do harm to health during test. So the protection to researchers is necessary. Tungsten alloy shielding tube is made of tungsten alloy for protecting researchers from damaging of X-ray. Tungsten alloy shielding tube has good performance of radiation to radioactive substance for the high density of tungsten alloy. Otherwise, compared with lead, tungsten alloy is more environmentally friendly,and tungsten alloy is non-toxic and non-radioactive.
Tungsten in Steel
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- Category: Tungsten Information
- Published on Thursday, 06 June 2013 18:25
In the middle of the 19th century tungsten was introduced to technical applications, mainly in steel production. From then until the first quarter of the 20th century, its importance in this field steadily rose and steel became the biggest tungsten consumer. Tungsten was among the first alloying elements systematically studied and used to improve steel properties, for example hardness, cutting efficiency and cutting speed of tool steels. Different tungsten containing steels were developed in Austria, Germany, France and England, followed by high speed steels in the USA. Pioneers in the field of tungsten applications in steel making were Franz Köller, Franz Mayr, Robert Mushet, Sir Robert Hadfield, Frederick Winslow Taylor and Mansel White.
The addition of tungsten to construction steels has decreased since 1940 because alloying with Mo and Cr, as well as with V and Ni, yielded better performance at a lower price. From 1927, when cemented carbides (hardmetals) were developed, the production of total tungsten consumed in steelmaking declined constantly to a current figure of about 20%, but nevertheless steel is today the second biggest consumer. This percentage is the average for demand worldwide but in different markets tungsten consumption of steel differs considerably, from 2% in the USA to about 10% in Europe and Japan and about 30% in Russia and China.
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