Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Arabian Journal for Science and Engineering https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-020-04732-y RESEARCH ARTICLE-MECHANICAL ENGINEERING Particulate‑Reinforced Tungsten Heavy Alloy/Yttria‑Stabilized Zirconia Composites Sintered Through Spark Plasma Sintering A. Muthuchamy 1  · Lakshmi Prasad Boggupalli 1  · Digvijay Rajendra Yadav 1  · N. Naveen Kumar 2  · Dinesh K Agrawal 3  · A. Raja Annamalai 4 Received: 11 September 2019 / Accepted: 19 June 2020 © King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals 2020 Abstract The current work investigates the mechanical properties of W–Ni–Fe tungsten heavy alloy (WHA) composites reinforced with 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 and 1.0 wt% of yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ). The composites were fabricated through spark plasma sintering (SPS) technique. Detailed microstructural characterization of the sintered samples, including contiguity, grain size and matrix volume fraction, was carried out. It was found that the W–W contiguity was decreasing with increasing amount of YSZ. Hardness and yield strength of the sintered samples were found to be decreasing with the increasing amount of YSZ. The WHA with 0.25 wt% YSZ exhibited the highest mechanical properties among all compositions chosen for this study. Fractography revealed W–W intergranular fracture indicating a brittle mode failure. Keyword 8 mol % yttria-stabilized zirconia · Oxide dispersion strengthening · Spark plasma sintering · Tungsten heavy alloys Abbreviations WHA Tungsten heavy alloy YSZ Yttria-stabilized zirconia Y 2 O 3 Yttrium oxide WC Tungsten carbide SiC Silicon carbide La 2 O 3 Lanthanum oxide HfO 2 Hafnium dioxide TiO 2 Titanium dioxide ZrO 2 Zirconium dioxide ZrC Zirconium carbide Sc 2 O 3 Scandium oxide SPS Spark plasma sintering BN Boron nitride EDS Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy UTS Ultimate tensile strength 1 Introduction The W–Ni–Fe-based tungsten heavy alloys (WHAs) are widely used in nuclear, military and defence applications due to their high strength and easy deformability of Ni and Fe [1, 2]. Pure tungsten exhibits high strength and high den- sity but very low ductility, and therefore, it behaves like a brittle material, and hence is not very suitable in heavy duty nuclear and defence applications [3, 4]. However, the tung- sten alloyed with Ni and Fe provides good ductility. Tradi- tional WHAs are the alloys with the combination of Ni–Fe or Ni–Co or Ni–Cu with tungsten [5–8]. WHAs have a wide range of applications in defence industry such as counter weights, radiation shields and kinetic energy penetrators. Among the numerous applications of WHAs, the kinetic energy penetrators are unique, and the penetration capacity is a function of density and hardness. Significant research has been carried out to increase the penetration depth of WHAs [9–16]. To improve the hardness and penetration performance, traditional WHAs were added with refractory metals like Re and Mo; it resulted through in enhancement * A. Raja Annamalai raja.anna@gmail.com 1 Department of Manufacturing Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, VIT Vellore, Vellore, Tamil Nadu 632 014, India 2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Vignan‘s Institute of Information Technology (Autonomous), Besides VSEZ, Duvvada, Vadlapudi Post, Visakhapatnam 530049, India 3 Materials Research Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA 4 Centre for Innovative Manufacturing Research, VIT Vellore, Vellore, Tamil Nadu 632 014, India