• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.270-274
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• 2003

Recently, the fabrication process of W-Cu nanocomposite powders has been researched to improve the sinterability by mechanochemical process (MCP), which consists of ball milling and hydrogen-reduction with W- and Cu-oxide mixture. However, there are many control variables in this process because the W oxides are hydrogen-reduced via several reduction stages at high temperature over 80$0^{\circ}C$ with susceptive reduction conditions. In this experiment, the W-15 wt%Cu nanocomposite powder was fabricated with the ball-milling and hydrogen-reduction process using W and CuO powder. The microstructure of the fabricated W-Cu nanocomposite powder was homogeneously composed of the fine W particles embedded in the Cu matrix. In the sintering process, the solid state sintering was certainly observed around 85$0^{\circ}C$ at the heating rate of 1$0^{\circ}C$/min. It is considered that the solid state sintering at low temperature range should occur as a result of the sintering of Cu phase between aggregates. The specimen was fully densified over 98% for theoretical density at 120$0^{\circ}C$ for 1 h with the heating rate of 1$0^{\circ}C$/min.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.174-180
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• 1994

Electrical contact property of the W-20wt%Cu contact materials manufactured by liquid phase sintering of nanocomposite W-Cu powders was investigated and discussed in terms of microstructural development during performance test. Nanocomposite powders were prepared by hydrogen reduction of ball milled W-Cu oxide mixture. They underwent complete densification and microstructural homogenization during liquid phase sintering. As a consequence, the W-Cu contacts produced from nanocomposite powders showed superior contact property of lower arc erosion and stable contact resistance. This might be mostly due to the fact that the arc erosion by evaporation of Cu liquid droplets and surface cracking remarkably became weakened. It is concluded that the improvement of anti-arc erosion of the composite specimen is basically attributed to microstructural homogeneity.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.235-244
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• 2002

The effects of residual impurities on solid state sintering of the powder injection molded (PIMed) W-15wt%Cu nanocomposite powder were investigated. The W-Cu nanocomposite powder was produced by the mech-ano-chemical process consisting of high energy ball-milling and hydrogen reduction of W blue powder-cuO mixture. Solid state sintering of the powder compacts was conducted at $1050^{\circ}C$ for 2~10 h in hydrogen atmosphere. The den-sification of PIM specimen was slightly larger than that of PM(conventional PM specimen), being due to fast coalescence of aggregate in the PIM. The only difference between PIM and PM specimens was the amount of residual impurities. The carbon as a strong reduction agent effectively reduced residual W oxide in the PIM specimen. The $H_2O$ formed by $H_2$ reduction of oxide disintegrated W-Cu aggregates during removal process, on the contrary to this, micropore volume rapidly decreased due to coalescence of the disintegrated W-Cu aggregates during evolution of CO.It can be concluded that the higher densification was due to the earlier occurred Cu phase spreading that was induced by effective removal of residual oxides by carbon.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.258-264
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• 1998

The initial sintering behaviour of the powder injection molded (PIMed) W-l5wt%Cu nanocomposite powder was investigated. The W-Cu nanocomposite powder was produced by the mechanochemical process consisting of high energy ball-milling and hydrogen reduction of W blue powder-CuO mixture. Solid state sintering of the powder compacts was conducted at $1050^{\circ}C$ for 2~10 hours in hydrogen at mosphere. The sintering behaviour was examined and discussed in terms of microstructural developments such as W-Cu aggregate formation, pore size distribution and W grain growth. The volume shrinkage of PIM specimen was slightly larger than that of PM(conventional PM specimen), being due to fast local densification in the PIM. Remarkable decrease of carbon and oxygen in the PIM enhanced local densification in the early stage of solid state sintering process with eliminating very fine pores less than 10 nm. In addition, such local densiflcation in the PIM is presumably responsible for mitigating of W-grain growth in the initial stage.

• Proceedings of the Korean Powder Metallurgy Institute Conference
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• 1994.04c
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• pp.24-24
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• 1994

• Proceedings of the Korean Powder Metallurgy Institute Conference
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• 1996.04a
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• pp.16-16
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• 1996

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.406-413
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• 2017

A Nanosized $WO_3$ and CuO powder mixture is prepared using novel high-energy ball milling in a bead mill to obtain a W-Cu nanocomposite powder, and the effect of milling time on the structural characteristics of $WO_3-CuO$ powder mixtures is investigated. The results show that the ball-milled $WO_3-CuO$ powder mixture reaches at steady state after 10 h milling, characterized by the uniform and narrow particle size distribution with primary crystalline sizes below 50 nm, a specific surface area of $37m^2/g$, and powder mean particle size ($D_{50}$) of $0.57{\mu}m$. The $WO_3-CuO$ powder mixtures milled for 10 h are heat-treated at different temperatures in $H_2$ atmosphere to produce W-Cu powder. The XRD results shows that both the $WO_3$ and CuO phases can be reduced to W and Cu phases at temperatures over $700^{\circ}C$. The reduced W-Cu nanocomposite powder exhibits excellent sinterability, and the ultrafine W-Cu composite can be obtained by the Cu liquid phase sintering process.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.304-309
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• 1997

The synthesis of W-l5wt%Cu nanocomposite powder by hydrogen reduction of ball milled W-Cu oxide mixture was investigated in terms of powder characteristics such as particle size, mixing homogeneity and micropore structure. It is found that the micropores in the ball milled oxide (2-50 nm in size) act as an effective removal path of water vapor, followed by the formation of dry atmosphere at reaction zone. Such thermodynamic condition enhances the nucleation of W phase but suppresses the growth process, being in favor of the formation of W nanoparticles (about 21 nm in size). In addition, the superior mixing homogeneity of starting oxide mixture turned out to Play a significant role for forming extraordinary chemical homogeneity of W-l5wt%Cu nanocomposite powder.

• Proceedings of the Korean Powder Metallurgy Institute Conference
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• 1994.10b
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• pp.21-21
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• 1994

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.329-335
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• 2002

Recently, the fabrication process of the W-Cu nanocomposite powders has been studied to improve the sinterability through the mechanical alloying and reduction of W and Cu oxide mixtures. In this study. the W-Cu composites were produced by mechanochemical process (MCP) using $WO_3-CuO$ mixtures with two different milling types of low and high energy, respectively. These ball-milled mixtures were reduced in $H_2$ atmosphere. The ball-milled and reduced powders were analyzed through XRD, SEM and TEM. The fine W-Cu powder could be obtained by the high energy ball-milling (HM) compared with the large Cu-cored structure powder by the low energy ball-milling (LM). After the HM for 20h, the W grain size of the reduced W-Cu powder was about 20-30 nm.