What Is the Drawing Process of Tungsten Wire?

The drawing process of tungsten wire is a process in which the thick tungsten blank is gradually drawn into the required thin wire. The following are the usual tungsten wire drawing process steps:

Prepare the raw materials: First, tungsten is extracted from tungsten ore, usually in the form of oxide or tungstic acid. These compounds are chemically processed and converted into tungsten powder.

Mixing and sintering: Tungsten powder is mixed with a proportion of other metal powders (usually copper or silver) to create an alloy. This step can improve the bending properties and conductivity of the tungsten wire.

Billet preparation: The alloy powder is made into a billet, usually a cylindrical billet, through a high-pressure and high-temperature sintering process.

Billet Heating: Heating the billet to the appropriate temperature, usually above the melting point of tungsten, to make it more plastic.

Wire drawing: The heated blank is passed through a wire drawing machine and gradually drawn into filaments of the required diameter. This is the most critical step and usually requires multiple passes of drawing. Each drawing will reduce the diameter of the tungsten wire while increasing its length. During this process, the tungsten wire may undergo processes such as annealing to improve its performance.

Cooling and cutting: The drawn tungsten wire is cooled and then cut to the required length.

Cleaning and Inspection: Clean and inspect the tungsten wire to make sure it has no defects.

Packaging: Coiling or packaging tungsten wire into a suitable form for storage and shipping.