Institute of Metals Division - The Effect of Zone Purification on the Transition Temperature of Polycrystalline Tungsten

An analysis was made of the influence of floating molten zone traversal on the purification of tungsten rods and the effect of this purification on the brittle -to-ductile transition temperature. The major impurities detectable in the original rods, i.e., molybdenum and oxygen, were reduced by zone refining from 30 to 3 Ppm. Changes in the trace amounts of other impurities could not be quantitatively determined since they were below the limit of detection. Tensile tests on 3-mil wires, drawn from these rods and recrystallized to 17,000 grains per sq mm, showed a transition temperature of 60°C for the zone Purified and 175°C for the original material. 1 HE brittle-to-ductile transition temperature is manifest mainly in the bee metals, iron,' molybdenum, chromium,3 tungsten,4 and niobium. Since many of these metals cannot be fabricated at room temperature in a commercially pure annealed poly-crystalline state, a considerable amount of work has been done on evaluating the influence of purification on the transition temperature in order to determine indirectly whether the fabricability of these metals can be improved by removing impurities. Smith and Rutherford8 showed that the transition temperature of iron is lowered significantly by zone purification. Working with chromium, Edwards, Nish, and wain7 found also that purification appreciably lowered the transition temperature. A similar evaluation has so far not been reported for tungsten, probably because of the difficulties in obtaining tungsten in a purified polycrystalline state. carlson8 and, more recently, schadler9 have purified tungsten rods by floating zone traversal, but after zone traversal, their rods were single crystals. To obtain high-purity polycrystalline tungsten, a technique has to be round for transforming the zone-purified single crystal material into a suitable polycrystalline structure. The purpose of this investigation was to obtain zone-purified tungsten in a suitable polycrystalline state and then to evaluate the effect of zone purification on the transition temperature.