Mechanical characterization and modeling of the heavy tungsten alloy IT180

Pure tungsten or its alloys (WHA) find applications in several fields, especially due to the fact that these materials show a good combination of mechanical and thermal properties and they are commonly used in aerospace, automotive, metal working processes, military and nuclear technologies. Looking at the scientific literature, a lack in the mechanical characterization over wide ranges in temperature and strain-rates was found, especially for W-Ni-Cu alloys. In this work, the mechanical characterization and the consequent material modeling of the tungsten alloy INERMET® IT180 were performed. The material is actually used in the collimation system of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and several studies are currently under development in order to be able to numerically predict the material damage in case of energy beam impact, but to do this, a confident strength model has to be obtained. This is the basis of this work, in which a test campaign in compression and tension at different strain-rates and temperatures was carried out. The dynamic tests were performed using Hopkinson Bar setups, and the heating of the specimen was reached using an induction coil system. The experimental data were, finally, used to extract the coefficient of three different material models via an analytical approach.