Tungsten alloy for military defense

Why tungsten heavy alloy is adopted in military?

Nowadays, tungsten heavy alloy is increasingly adopted as the raw material to make parts of military products, such as bullet, armor and shells, shrapnel head, grenade, hunting gun, bullet warheads,bulletproof vehicles, tank panzers, cannons, firearms, etc. A major use for tungsten heavy alloys is in kinetic energy penetrators, where they are in direct competition with depleted uranium (DU). Recent investigations conducted at the Army Research Laboratory show that DU’s superior properties resulted from its ability to localize shear during ballistic penetration events. Therefore, it was argued that if localized shear can be imparted to tungsten heavy alloys, these alloys would exhibit penetration performance matching that of depleted uranium (which had become an environmental problem).

You can image the subject envisions a penetrator, dropped from service height of a bomber aircraft, using kinetic energy to penetrate the shielding, and subsequently deliver a nuclear explosive to the buried target.

The problem with such a penetrator is the tremendous heat applied to the penetrator unit when striking the shielding (surface) at hundreds of meters per second. This has partially been solved by using metals such as tungsten (with a much higher melting point than steel), and altering the shape of the projectile (such as an ogive).(You can get more information from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_bunker_buster)

In fact, in the World War Ⅱ, tungsten has already been used as an important raw material to make weapons for military defense. There is abundant wolframite ore reserves found then in Portugl, which is used to produce tungsten concentrates.

Properties & appliance of tungsten heavy alloy in military

In order to reduce the adoption of environmental hazardous materials in the military field, tungsten related products are used as a nontoxic substitute for lead and depleted uranium in bullet and shot. High-density metals such as tungsten are now widely employed; the goal is to create functional, high density, non-toxic arms projectiles with controlled impact behavior. The special properties of tungsten alloy render it the most ideal counterweight materials, far more than already listed on our website.

Owing to its great hardness and resistance to high temperature, tungsten has been adopted in military defense increasingly today.

We can offer the tungsten heavy alloy rod, ball, cube, cylinder, block, etc. for military usage, such as bomblet, armor-piercing bullet, etc. We welcome the opportunity to collaborate with our customers in the design of individual specifications. Our mission is to meet individual customer requirements. Flexibility is our strength. We pride ourselves on being able to find the right solution to customer’s problems.

For more related information, please feel free to contact us by sales@chinatungsten.com.

Following pictures are the products offered by CTOMS