Articles - Properties and rapid sintering of nanostructured WC and WC-TiAl hard materials by the pulsed current activated heating
- Ga-Na Junga, Byung-Su Kimb, Jin-Kook Yoonc and In-Jin Shona,*
- a Division of Advanced Materials Engineering and the Research Center of Advanced Materials Development, Engineering College, Chonbuk National University, Chonbuk 561-756, Korea b Minerals Resources Research Division, Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, Daejeon, 305-350 Korea c Materials Architecturing Research Center, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, P.O. Box 131, Cheongryang, Seoul 130-650, Korea
Abstract
In the case of cemented WC, Ni or Co is added as a binder for the formation of composite structures. However, the high cost of Ni or Co, the low hardness and the low corrosion resistance of the WC-Ni and WC-Co cermets have generated interest in recent years for alternative binder phases. In this study, TiAl was used as a novel binder and consolidated by the pulsed current activated sintering (PCAS) method. Highly dense WC-TiAl with a relative density of up to 99% was obtained within 2 min by PCAS under a pressure of 80MPa. The method was found to enable not only the rapid densification but also the inhibition of grain growth preserving the nano-scale microstructure. The addition of TiAl to WC enhanced the toughness without great decrease of hardness due to crack deflection and decrease of grain size.
Keywords: Nanomaterials, Sintering, Hardness, Fracture Toughness, Hard Materials.
This Article
Copyright 2019 International Orgranization for Ceramic Processing. All rights reserved.Clean-Energy Research Institute(CRI), Hanyang University, 222, Wangsimni-ro, Seongdong-gu, Seoul, 04763, Korea
E-mail: jcpr@hanyang.ac.kr