A Nanosized WO3 and CuO powder mixture is prepared using novel high-energy ball milling in a bead mill to obtain a W-Cu nanocomposite powder, and the effect of milling time on the structural characteristics of WO3-CuO powder mixtures is investigated. The results show that the ball-milled WO3-CuO powder mixture reaches at steady state after 10 h milling, characterized by the uniform and narrow particle size distribution with primary crystalline sizes below 50 nm, a specific surface area of 37 m2/g, and powder mean particle size (D50) of 0.57 μm. The WO3-CuO powder mixtures milled for 10 h are heat-treated at different temperatures in H2 atmosphere to produce W-Cu powder. The XRD results shows that both the WO3 and CuO phases can be reduced to W and Cu phases at temperatures over 700oC. The reduced W-Cu nanocomposite powder exhibits excellent sinterability, and the ultrafine W-Cu composite can be obtained by the Cu liquid phase sintering process.

The effects of residual impurities on solid state sintering of the powder injection molded (PIMed) W-15wt%Cu nanocomposite powder were investigated. The W-Cu nanocomposite powder was produced by the mech-ano-chemical process consisting of high energy ball-milling and hydrogen reduction of W blue powder-cuO mixture. Solid state sintering of the powder compacts was conducted at for 2~10 h in hydrogen atmosphere. The den-sification of PIM specimen was slightly larger than that of PM(conventional PM specimen), being due to fast coalescence of aggregate in the PIM. The only difference between PIM and PM specimens was the amount of residual impurities. The carbon as a strong reduction agent effectively reduced residual W oxide in the PIM specimen. The formed by reduction of oxide disintegrated W-Cu aggregates during removal process, on the contrary to this, micropore volume rapidly decreased due to coalescence of the disintegrated W-Cu aggregates during evolution of CO.It can be concluded that the higher densification was due to the earlier occurred Cu phase spreading that was induced by effective removal of residual oxides by carbon.

Electrical contact property of the W-20wt%Cu contact materials manufactured by liquid phase sintering of nanocomposite W-Cu powders was investigated and discussed in terms of microstructural development during performance test. Nanocomposite powders were prepared by hydrogen reduction of ball milled W-Cu oxide mixture. They underwent complete densification and microstructural homogenization during liquid phase sintering. As a consequence, the W-Cu contacts produced from nanocomposite powders showed superior contact property of lower arc erosion and stable contact resistance. This might be mostly due to the fact that the arc erosion by evaporation of Cu liquid droplets and surface cracking remarkably became weakened. It is concluded that the improvement of anti-arc erosion of the composite specimen is basically attributed to microstructural homogeneity.