Industry Specifications for Tungsten Alloys

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.

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