Analysis of strengthening mechanisms through cyclic heat treatment of tungsten heavy alloys

Abstract

A cell model is presented and numerical analyses are implemented to find the distribution of thermally induced stress, thermally induced deformation and the effect of the tungsten volume fraction during a single step of the quenching process for a 2-dimensional cell model and to find the strengthening mechanisms through the cyclic heat treatment of tungsten alloys. The thermal stresses induced from a single step of quenching mostly concentrated on the W/matrix interface and W/W grain boundary region and the stresses were distributed locally in tensile and locally in the compressible state both in matrix and particle. The mechanism of matrix phase formation at tungsten-tungsten boundaries during cyclic heat-treatment was found to be due to the combination effect of the super saturated matrix phase precipitation into W/W grain boundaries and the thermal stresses state. These results enhance the impact energy enhancement in tungsten heavy alloys.