Tungsten has long been recognized as an irreplaceable material in extreme service environments owing to its high melting point, and high density. Its alloys have effectively addressed the shortcomings of pure tungsten, such as poor machinability, low-temperature brittleness, and susceptibility to oxidation, by adding elements or compounds like Ni, Fe, Cr, and Y 2 O 3 , which significantly improved the overall performance and broadened the application fields of tungsten-based materials, such as aerospace, military protection, and the nuclear industry. This paper provides a brief overview of the development history of tungsten alloys while primarily focusing on the principles and performance advantages of major tungsten and tungsten-based coatings preparation techniques, including electro-spark deposition (ESD), chemical vapor deposition (CVD), physical vapor deposition (PVD), plasma spraying (PS), and molten salt electroplating (MSE). By combining the latest research progress of different preparation processes, the key roles and mechanisms of tungsten and tungsten-based coatings in enhancing the wear resistance, corrosion resistance, and ablation resistance of matrix materials are elucidated. Finally, future development trends are discussed, emphasizing engineering-oriented process optimization, cooperative interface design for enhanced stability, and the transition toward damage-tolerant architectures and multi-field coupling service behavior research, which provide theoretical references and technical guidances for the lifespan prediction and engineering application of high-performance tungsten-based functional protective coatings.
Xu et al. (Mon,) studied this question.