W/steel joint fabrication using the pulse plasma sintering (PPS) method

The paper presents application of pulse plasma sintering method (PPS), developed at the Faculty of the Materials Science and Engineering of Warsaw University of Technology. Unlike other electric-field assisted sintering methods, the PPS method employs pulse high-current electric discharges for heating and activating the material to be sintered. The phenomena, taking place during the high-current pulses, which heat the powder during the PPS treatment and activate the sintering process, are similar to those occurring in SPS technique. However, in PPS, thanks to much higher energy the pulse discharge, these phenomena run much more intensively. m of the present study was to fabricate by the PPS a joint between tungsten and Eurofer 97 steel. Because of the large difference in thermal expansion coefficients of the joined materials, stresses are induced at the joint interfaces. To reduce these stresses a thin interlayer was incorporated between the joined materials. Four different materials were tested. periments allowed to establish the optimal PPS sintering parameters. It was shown that the interlayers between W and Eurofer 97 steel fabricated at 1000 °C for 10 min were highly dense and no delamination at joint interfaces occurred. The results of the thermocycle tests proved a high strength of the joints produced by PPS.