Three-Body Abrasive Wear of Reactive Sintered WC-Co Hardmetals with Grain Growth Inhibitors

WC-Co hardmetals are widely known wear resistant materials, their properties depend strongly on the WC grain size; commonly fine grained materials exhibited higher properties. One opportunity to produce fine grained materials is reactive sintering. Reactive sintering is a novel processing method, where the synthesis of the carbide phase is combined with solid and liquid state sintering of the composite during a single heating cycle. WC-co hardmetals where synthesized in situ from the elemental powders of W, Co and C. To investigate the influence of grain growth inhibitors the Cr3C2 and VC were also included to powder mixtures. To investigate the influence of carbon content composites with different amounts of C were produced. The microstructures, hardness and three-body abrasive wear resistance of reactive sintered WC-Co hardmetals with grain growth inhibitors depending on carbon content in initial powder mixture is exhibited.