MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF WROUGHT TUNGSTEN

The mechanical properties and quality of commercially available tungsten sheet was investigated. For the initial quality control phase, hardness, microstructure, chemical impurities, flexural properties and tensile strength were determined on material from three sources. Based on these test results a specification requiring high quality material with high cold reduction was formulated. For the second phase of testing three powder lots of tungsten sheet, per the specification, were procured from five sources. The tensile test results on this material are presented for room temperature, 1000, 2000, 3600 and 4400 F. Good correlation between room temperature hardness and tensile strength was found. The material from one producer consistently displayed a limited amount of plastic elongation at room temperature. A third phase was conducted to obtain detailed design data on three lots of material obtained from one producer. These data are reported on separately as Volume 2 of this report. Report on Materials Application.