Fabrication, Tensile, and Hardness Properties of Novel Cast WC-Reinforced 304 Stainless Steel Composites

304 stainless steel powder, cast WC powder, and 304 close-grained stainless steel wire mesh were used as raw materials to prepare cast WC particle-reinforced 304 stainless steel composites. The composites were formed by rolling and sintering, and then re-rolling and re-sintering procedures were used to boost the performance of the composites. The effects of the mass fraction of cast WC in the powder, the sintering temperature, and the rolling deformation on the hardness, tensile properties, and fracture morphology of the composites were investigated. The results show that the hardness and yield strength of the composites positively correlated with all three process parameters, of which rolling reduction had the greatest influence. An increase in either temperature or cast WC content led to an undesirable clustering of cast WC particles, which led to brittle fracture locally in the material and reduced the tensile strength and plasticity of the composites. Moreover, the increase in rolling deformation helped to improve the strength and plasticity of the composites. For tensile properties, the optimum content of cast WC in the blended powder was 10 wt.%, the perfect sintering temperature was 1200°C, and the best rolling reduction was 35% in the range of parameters studied in this work.