This thesis investigates a new current activated melt infiltration process to produce high hardness nanoW-Cu composite. Preliminary investigations of the effect of current intensity (10-100A) and duration up to (5-10 seconds) on the infiltration, microstructure and the localized mechanical response in the form of micro hardness were explored. Hardness values for the nanocomposites exceeded those reported so far in the literature, which was attributed to the extremely short process duration that limited W particle coarsening. More multiphysics modeling was conducted to shed light on the temperature distributions during the W-Cu. Modeling was also applied to the CNT-Cu system to determine voltage requirements.
