The present work reports the effect of Ta on densification and microstructure evolution during non-isothermal and spark plasma sintering of nanocrystalline W. Nanocrystalline W-5wt.%Ta alloy powder was synthesized using mechanical alloying. The nanocrystalline powder was characterized thoroughly using X-ray diffraction line profile analysis. Furthermore, the shrinkage behavior of nanocrystalline powder was investigated during non-isothermal sintering using dilatometry. Subsequently, the alloy powder was consolidated using spark plasma sintering up to 1600 {\deg}C. The role of Ta on stabilizing the microstructure during spark plasma sintering of nanocrystalline W was investigated in detail using electron backscatter diffraction. The average grain size of spark plasma sintered W-5wt.%Ta alloy was observed as 1.73 micron.
@article{arxiv.2007.12947,
title = {Microstructure evolution and densification during spark plasma sintering of nanocrystalline W-5wt.%Ta alloy},
author = {Ajeet K. Srivastav and Suresh Bandi and Abhishek Kumar and B. S. Murty},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.12947},
year = {2020}
}