Microstructural studies of W – Cu nanostructured precursor composite powders prepared by mechanical alloying

The present work reported the fabrication of the W–Cu nanocomposite precursor powders via high energy ball milling. The W–25 wt-%CuO powders were taken as the raw materials, and the following process condition was used: ball to powder weight ratio of 20 : 1, the rotation speed of 500 rev min^&minus1, the milling time of 15–45 min and 1–40 h, and the mode of milling 10 min, air cooling 30 min. The phase and microstructure of the as milled powders with variation of milling time was investigated, using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The experiment results show that the nanocomposite powders can be successfully synthesised by mechanical alloying using a short time of 1 h. During the ball milling, CuO powders were reduced by W, and a portion of the W powders were oxidised into WO_x (x=2 to 3). The possible mechanism of the reaction was detected.