Microstructural and Mechanical Investigation of WC-TiC-Co Cemented Carbides Obtained by Conventional Powder Metallurgy

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 degrees C 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.