Preliminary evaluation of tensile and stress-rupture behavior of a 24 a/o Re + 0.4 a/o HfC tungsten alloy wire

In this paper the tensile and stress-rupture behavior of hafnium carbide dispersed tungsten-rhenium alloy wire, W + 24Re + 0.4HfC (WHfC + 24Re), provided by Phillips Elmet and AMAX under contract NAS3-24863, was studied from room temperature (RT) to 1560 K, and is compared to previous data on the W + 4Re + 0.4HfC (WHfC + 4Re) and W + 0.4HfC (WHfC) wires (Petrasek 1972). The RT tensile strength of the 355 μm diameter WhfC + 24Re wires was about 3230 MPa and compares favorably to 3160 and 2250 MPa for the WHfC + 4Re and WHfC wires. The RT ductility of the WHfC + 24Re wire was quite high with a 50% reduction of 2%, respectively. Generally at temperatures up to 1350 K, the WHfC + 24Re wire had higher tensile strengths and ductilities than the other two wires. However, above 1350 K, the WHfC + 4Re wires. The main contribution to the strengthening of the WHfC + 24Re wires was the fine and long fibrous grain substructures and the homogeneous dispersion of the HfC particles in the W-Re matrix. These properties suggested that the WHfC + 24Re wire hold promise as potential fiber reinforcements in composites from room temperature to about 1350 K