Mechanical studies of wolfram carbide

In this article a study of the mechanical properties of a sintered wolfram carbide-cobalt penetrator has been carried out. Different penetrators are studied in a compression test to establish the Young’s modulus, the bulk modulus, the yield function and the fracture stress and strain during simple compression. Also the data are used to calculate the fracture strain during simple tension. In the last section the data are compared with data reported from the literature and some suggestions for increasing the penetration capability of the penetrator are provided.