Papers by Keyword: Cemented Carbide

Abstract: In-situ evaluation of crack generation using acoustic emission (AE) technique as a non-destructive testing method was applied during laser cladding of WC-Co cemented carbide via a multi-beam laser metal deposition (LMD) system. Especially, this study aims to investigate relationships between the laser output and the number of cracks generated in beads of WC-12mass%Co cemented carbide cladded by the LMD system. The number of cracks was evaluated using an AE sensor attached to a substrate. The number of cracks was also evaluated from SEM images of beads. By comparing these results, problems in the both evaluation methods for crack generation in laser cladding were discussed.

Abstract: Cemented carbide has huge applications in industrial production, but its high mechanical properties also increase the difficulty of processing. In this work, ultrasonic vibration-assisted grinding technology is used for the precision manufacturing of cemented carbide. The influence of the dynamic trajectory of the grains on the material removal process is analyzed. The morphology and roughness of the processed surface are measured and studied. It was observed that in the conventional grinding, the blade pattern is obvious with some defects on the surface. While in the ultrasonic vibration-assisted grinding, the material surface is mainly distributed with pits and small protrusions, and there is no obvious blade pattern. According to the roughness test, the roughness of ultrasonic vibration-assisted grinding is better than that of conventional grinding, and the increase in amplitude has a significant effect on the improvement of roughness. When the amplitude increases from 3μm to 9μm, the surface roughness is improved about 38.1%. The research of ultrasonic vibration-assisted grinding should be of great importance for promote the high-efficiency and high-quality processing and special applications of cemented carbide.

Abstract: To improve the pressure-bearing capacity, a novel high-pressure die with cemented carbide as the first layer of supporting ring was designed. The novel high-pressure die increases the ultimate load-bearing capacity of the high-pressure die by increasing the pretension of the tungsten carbide cylinder. As the volume of the cemented carbide increases, the difficulty of manufacturing increases, therefore, to reduce the manufacturing difficulty of the cemented carbide supporting ring and reduce the shear stress of the supporting ring, the cemented carbide supporting ring is splited. And through reasonable derivation calculations, the calculation formula suitable for the optimal interference amount of the high-pressure die is obtained. The numerical analysis results show that: when a pressure of 6.2 GPa is applied on the inner wall of the tungsten carbide cylinder, high-pressure die mold that uses cemented carbide as the first layer of support ring (hereinafter referred to as double-layered cemented carbide novel high-pressure die) is lower than the ordinary high-pressure die in term of circumferential stress by 93.34%. In terms of von Mises stress by 21.4%, and term of maximum shear stress by 21.37%. The three principal stress images of the two molds are drawn, which proved that the double-layered hard alloy novel high-pressure die can fully exert the performance of the material and can withstand greater pressure.

Abstract: Spark erosion of WC-8Co carbide pieces in oil resulted in a powder consisting of nanostructured spherical microparticles formed by rapid crystallization of the melt. These particles consist of rounded WC grains with an average diameter of about 0.18 μm, surrounded by cobalt. The process productivity, specific energy consumption, microstructure, particle size distribution, chemical and phase compositions of the obtained powder are determined. It was found that as a result of oil pyrolysis, free carbon is formed (3.4 %), which makes this powder unsuitable for the production of carbide products from it. A technique has been developed and the process of controlled removal of excess carbon by annealing the obtained powder in a CO₂ atmosphere at a temperature of 1000 °C has been studied. As a result of annealing for 120 minutes, the carbon content decreases to the required value (5.6 %). Studies of the phase composition and microstructure showed that the obtained particles consist of elongated WC grains, the average diameter of which increased to 0.43 μm.

Abstract: The machining of difficult-to-cut materials such as titanium plays a key role in several industries such as aerospace or medical. Approaches to overcome many difficulties when machining these materials can be an appropriate coating system for cemented carbide cutting tools. However, the atmosphere under which machining takes place, influencing the chemical tool wear, has not been taken into consideration. This work examines the tribochemical wear resistance of TiN, TiAlN and CrAlN coated carbide tools under different atmospheric conditions when cutting Ti6Al-4V. Air, technically pure argon and silane-doped argon is used to determine the influence of different oxygen levels on the wear behaviour of the tools. It has been found that oxidation of tools and tool coatings plays a significant role in tool wear when dry cutting titanium. Best results were generated using CrAlN and uncoated inserts where an increase in tool life up 50 % can be achieved when cutting in oxygen levels corresponding to extreme high vacuum (XHV) adequate atmospheres by using silane-doped argon. The benefits of XHV adequate atmospheres also have an effect on TiAlN-and TiN based coatings, but the chemical interaction of Ti element in the coating with the workpiece material, which presumably reduces wear resistance of cutting tools, cannot be outweighted or equalised by applying oxygen free atmospheres.

Abstract: WC-Co cemented carbide is one of the widely hard materials used for cutting in machining industry, due to its microstructural and mechanical stability even at high temperature. However, diffusion wear is the most serious problem that WC-Co suffers from. One of the most applied approaches to improve the WC–Co cemented carbide performances is the addition of transition metal carbides such as: TiC, TaC and NbC which prevents diffusion wear thanks to the gamma phase (Ti,Ta,Nb,W)C which is formed during sintering. Therefore, and in order to understand the thermal metallurgical reactions occurred between WC-Co cemented carbide and (Ti, Ta, Nb)C transition carbides and theirs effects on the microstructural and mechanical properties. The WC–TiC– TaC– NbC–Co cemented carbide was elaborated by conventional powder metallurgy then thermal, microstructural and mechanical investigations were performed on the elaborated carbide. A temperature of sintering was determined to be more than 1347 oC by differential thermal analysis (DTA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) coupled with energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) observations showed that the microstructure consists in a mixture of angular WC grains and (W,Ti)C rounded grains embedded in the Co-rich binder. X-ray diffraction analysis confirmed the presence of these three phases with free carbon. The results of EDS analysis highlight the solution-reprecipitation phenomena caused by liquid phase sintering and clearly revealed the presence of small amount of free carbon. The mechanical characterizations showed that the WC–TiC– TaC– NbC–Co cemented carbide exhibits excellent hardness-fracture toughness combination.

Abstract: During production of cemented carbides hard and brittle tungsten carbide (WC) and ductile metal powders (mainly from Fe-group) are milled together. Complete milling results in a Gaussian distribution and narrow particle size range of the milled powder which promote the homogeneity and improve the properties of sintered composites. Cobalt, conventional metal employed in cemented carbides, possesses good comminution characteristics with WC powder. However, its toxicity and fluctuating price pushes researchers to find suitable alternatives and Fe-based alloys have shown most promising results. Cemented carbides with the Fe-Cr system as metal binder phase have potential to perform better than regular WC-Co composites in corrosive and oxidative environments. The goal of this paper was to prepare uniform cemented carbides powders with relatively high fraction of stainless Fe-Cr steel. To achieve a uniform powder mixture is a challenge at high ductile steel fraction. High energy milling (HEM) is a powerful technique for achieving (ultra) fine powder mixtures with narrow powder size range. HEM was carried out in a novel high energy ball mill RETSCH Emax. Milling in tumbling ball mill, which is the most widely used method, was employed for reference. Prepared powder mixtures were characterised in terms of particle size, size distribution and shape. In addition, powder mixtures were consolidated via spark plasma sintering to evaluate the effect of the milling method and the duration on the microstructure of final cemented carbide.

Abstract: This research aim to improve the machining properties of the EDM for cemented carbide. The new methods were designed and proposed to use the ultrasonic vibration technique. Two types of USEDM systems were produced. One had a low frequency of 29 kHz with a large vibration amplitude, while the other had a high frequency of 59 kHz with a small amplitude. The Cu-W tool electrode was synchronized with the devised vibration system, and several discharge generation conditions were carried out on the cemented carbide material. The results showed that the highest machining efficiencies were obtained from the ultrasonic low frequency of 29 kHz with a large vibration amplitude. The MRR, TWR and surface roughness of the ultrasonic low frequency with the large vibration amplitude were better than the high frequency system with the small amplitude system. It was clarified that the ultrasonic vibration with the large amplitude could assist the material removal behavior of the discharge.

Abstract: The use of coated hard metal is spread in all fields of mechanical working, both forming and machining. Different hard metals are used based on their mechanical characteristic that strongly depends on composition and grain size. Substrates such as HSS and WC – Co are typically coated with PVD thin layers in applications such as metalworking and cutting; thus lot of efforts are put in researching this specific field. Coating composition, and coating architecture are paramount topics in the subsject of surface anti – wear thin films. The focus of this study is to analyze the difference between two AlTiN coatings, a monolayer and a multilayer with gradient composition, from the point of view of microstructure and adhesion. Experimental cutting tests were done to characterize the behavior of the coating in face milling of AISI 660 heat resistant alloy: varying cutting speeds from 15 to 40 m/min it was finally assessed that a multilayer coating can give higher tool life with respect to a monolayer coating of the same composition.

Abstract: Cemented carbides are the most common cutting tools for machining various grades of steels. In this study, wear behavior of two different cemented carbide grades with roughly the same fraction of binder phase and carbide phase but different grain size, in turning austenitic stainless steel is investigated. Wear tests were carried out against 316L stainless steel at 180 and 250 m/min cutting speeds.The worn surface of cutting tool is characterized using high resolution scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) and 3D optical profiler.The wear of cemented carbide in turning stainless steel is controlled by both chemical and mechanical wear. Plastic deformation, grain fracture and chemical wear is observed on flank and rake face of the cutting insert. In the case of fine-grained, the WC grains has higher surface contact with the adhered material which promotes higher chemical reaction and degradation of WC grains, so chemical wear resistance of the composites is larger when WC grains are larger. The hardness of cemented carbide increase linearly by decreasing grain size, therefore mechanical wear resistance of the composites is larger when WC grains are smaller.