Researchers say that improving tungsten-heavy alloys is key to making advanced nuclear fusion reactors work.
, the researchers make the case for improving tungsten heavy alloys for use in advanced nuclear fusion reactors by mimicking the structure of seashells.Jacob Haag, first author of the paper, explained that the sun—with a core temperature of around 27 million degrees Fahrenheit—is powered by nuclear fusion. Thus, it should come as no surprise that fusion reactions produce a lot of heat.
According to Haag, it isn’t just their composition that gives these tungsten-heavy alloys their properties—thermomechanical treatment of the material can alter properties like tensile strength and fracture toughness. A particular hot-rolling technique produced microstructures in tungsten-heavy alloys that mimic the structure of nacre, also known as mother-of-pearl, in seashells. Nacre is known to exhibit extraordinary strength.
Within the nacre-like structure, the tungsten heavy alloy consists of two distinct phases: a ‘hard’ phase of almost pure tungsten, and a ‘ductile’ phase containing a mixture of nickel, iron, and tungsten. The research findings suggest that the high strength of tungsten-heavy alloys comes from an excellent bond between the dissimilar phases, including intimately bonded ‘hard’ and ‘ductile’ phases.
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