WC-Co material contains tungsten carbides surrounded by Co-based binder phase. These materials are commonly used for cutting tools, because of their excellent properties, such as: high hardness, high compression and flexural strength, great thermal conductivity, excellent abrasion resistance and high-temperature strength.
The main purpose of this work was characterization and finding possible differences between three cutting tools, made of WC-Co. Characterization methods used in this work were: light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and quantitative analysis of microstructure.
According to the results of XRD analysis present phases in all three specimens (besides δ-WC) are: α-Co, both types of η phases (Co3W3C, Co6W6C), Cr3C2 and M7C3. Quantitative analysis of microstructure reveals that volume fraction of a binder phase in specimen 7A is 3.72 %, while in specimens 3A and 4A are 4.76 % and 4.66 %. Lower content of binder phase has also been proved by XRD analysis. It was found that the mean grain area of tungsten carbide grains in specimens 3A and 4A are 0.68 μm2 and 0,73 μm2, while in specimen 7A is 0,50 μm2. Despite smaller mean grain area, specimen 7A also contains grains larger than 2.45 μm2, which were not found in specimens 3A and 4A.
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