W-Cu composite

W-Cu composites are of the materials born far after the industrial revolution in twentieth century in order to make simultaneous use of their abrasive and conductive properties respectively. Tungsten base electrical contacts exhibit excellent resistance to mechanical wear and electrical erosion.

The combination of tungsten with copper even leads to the optimization of other alloy properties such as ductility, mechanical strength, corrosion and wear resistance at elevated temperatures. These materials are used for a variety of applications, where the thermal and electrical properties of Cu and the very low expansion characteristics of tungsten can be advantageously utilized.

In these kinds of applications, high dense W-Cu composites with homogenous dispersion of tungsten and copper ingredients are often needed for high performance. More detailed; high voltage contacts, resistance welding electrodes, electrode materials for electrical discharge machining, heat sink materials for microelectronic packaging and microwave packages should be mentioned as their numerous functions.

Generally Cu contents of the range 5-20% address good thermal properties as well as 20-40% contents for electrical utilizations. Different properties comprising mechanical, physical, micro and macrostructural, thermal, electrical and etc., differ from method to another. In addition, function ability and cost of each method beside other characteristics of each one, prepares restrictions to the free usage of each approach to any application(table1).

Table 1 summarised the important W-Cu composites and some their properties .