Nanoengineering opens a new era for tungsten as well

Abstract

For the past century, tungsten has been exploited for numerous applications due to its unique properties, including its extremely high melting point, mass density, and mechanical strength. One specific potential application of tungsten (owing to its high mass density and strength) is the replacement of depleted uranium within kinetic energy antiarmor penetrators. Strenuous efforts in this direction have had limited success. However, nanoengineering has been applied recently to tailor the microstructure and properties of tungsten, leading to dramatic improvement with regard to this application. This paper provides some recent results on nanoengineered tungsten and discusses the underlying principles. It appears that nanoengineering is opening a new era for tungsten.