Ab Initio Calculation of Cobalt Interlayer Size Influence on Tensile Strength in WC-Co Hard Alloy

Quantum-mechanical calculations were performed for investigation of tensile strength for WC/Co/WC systems with the thickness of the cobalt interlayer of 3 and 7 atomic layers. It has been shown that the cobalt interlayer increasing leads to decreasing of the tensile strength from 17 GPa to 14 GPa. In addition, vacancy-type defect formation reduces the tensile strength of about 2 times.