Effects of Milling Time on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Composite WC-(Fe₃Al-B) Consolidated by Spark Plasma Sintering

Abstract:

Cobalt is widely used to produce WC-Co hard metals, but this binder has problems of shortage and unstable price. In this work, cobalt was replaced by an iron aluminide intermetallic binder. WC-10%(Fe₃Al-3%B) composite was prepared by vibration milling of WC, Fe, Fe-B, and Al powders and sintered by spark plasma sintering (SPS) at 1150 °C for 8 min under 30 MPa. The milling time was 0.17, 12, 25 and 50 h. The SPS was efficient to consolidate the composite resulting in relative density of ~98% or higher. With increasing milling time, Vickers hardness (HV₃₀) of composite increased from 12 to 14 GPa due to the enhanced homogeneity of microstructure, while the fracture toughness, K_Ic, determined by an indention fracture method using Shetty equation, remained constant at around 9.1 MPa.m^1/2.

• Periodical: Materials Science Forum (Volume 899)
• Pages: 487-492
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/MSF.899.487
• Online since: July 2017
• Authors: Luis Antonio C. Ybarra*, Afonso Chimanski, Gilberto J. Pereira, Izabel Fernanda Machado, Humberto Naoyuki Yoshimura
• Keywords: Composite, Fe₃Al, Intermetallic, Powder Technology, Spark Plasma Sintering, WC

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