For the military industry, tungsten and its alloys are extremely scarce strategic resources, which to a large extent determine the strength of a country’s military.
To produce modern weapons, it is inseparable from metal processing. For metal processing, military enterprises must have excellent knives and molds. Among the known metal elements, only tungsten can perform this important task. Its melting point exceeds 3400°C. The most refractory metal known, with a hardness of 7.5 (Mohs hardness), is one of the hardest metals.
The first person in the world to introduce tungsten into the field of cutting tools was the British Maschette. In 1864, Marchet added 5% of tungsten to tool steel (that is, steel for manufacturing cutting tools, measuring tools, and molds) for the first time, and the resulting tools increased the metal cutting speed by 50%. Since then, the cutting speed of tungsten-containing tools has increased geometrically. For example, the cutting speed of tools made of tungsten carbide alloy as the main material can reach more than 2000 m/min, which is 267 times that of tungsten-containing tools in the 19th century. . In addition to the high cutting speed, the hardness of tungsten carbide alloy tools will not decrease even at a high temperature of 1000 ℃. Therefore, carbide alloy tools are very suitable for cutting alloy materials that are difficult to machine with other tools.
The molds required for metal processing are mainly made of tungsten carbide ceramic cemented carbide. The advantage is that it is durable and can be punched more than 3 million times, while ordinary alloy steel molds can only be punched more than 50,000 times. Not only that, the mold made of tungsten carbide ceramic cemented carbide is not easy to wear, so the punched product is very accurate.
It can be seen that tungsten has a decisive influence on a country’s equipment manufacturing industry. If there is no tungsten, it will lead to a serious decline in the production efficiency of the equipment manufacturing industry, and at the same time, the equipment manufacturing industry will be paralyzed.
Post time: Dec-14-2020