Explosive Fabrication of Cu-C and Cu-W Materials

The possibility of fabrication of antifriction composites based on copper-graphite precursors using hot explosive consolidation technology is studied in the presented paper. The application of explosive consolidation technology provides high dense billets approaching the theoretical density without cracks and porous structure. The structure of fabricated billets was investigated depending on the parameters of the detonation front. As the investigation showed, the preliminary density of precursors is one of the important parameters in the offered technology. In case of low density under the shock wave front, geometry of the container changes and obtaining high dense billets becomes impossible. The pores, cracks and cavities were observed in an entire volume of these samples too.The Cu–(10-30%) W powder mixtures were formed into cylindrical rods using a hot shock wave consolidation (HSWC) process. Different types of Cu - W precursor composition were consolidated near the theoretical density under 900 °C; the loading intensity was under 10 GPA.The investigation showed that the combination of high temperatures (above 800 °C) and two-stage shock wave compression was beneficial to the consolidation of the Cu -W composites, resulting in high densities, good integrity and good electronic properties. The structure and property of the samples obtained depended on the sizes of tungsten particles. It was established that Cu-W composites with coarse tungsten in comparison to nanoscale W precursors give different result depending on the content of W.