High energy milling on tungsten powders

•High energy milling achieved decrease in particle and crystallite size in the powders.•WC grinding media exhibits higher contamination than W grinding media.•Tungsten with fine grain size of 2 µm obtained, when sintered at 1790 °C.

Nanocrystalline tungsten powders were produced by high energy mechanical milling, using both tungsten carbide (WC) and tungsten (W) balls as grinding media. X-ray diffraction study indicated that the lattice parameter of tungsten decreased (from 3.162 to 3.149 Å) with increasing milling time from 0 to 15 h. Considerable decrease in particle size was observed in both W and WC grinding media after 15 h of milling duration. Rietveld analysis of the X-ray data along the Williamson-Hall plots revealed that the crystallite size also decreased with increasing milling time. Chemical analyses showed that the total amount of cobalt and carbon in the milled samples were higher in WC grinding media, as compared to W grinding media. The sintered density increased from 80% to 98% from as received to milled tungsten powders, when sintered at 1790 °C. The mechanical properties of as sintered alloys were evaluated and were found to be strongly influenced by the milling time and grinding media.