Preparation and Characterization of Tungsten Carbide Micro/Nano Composites

Abstract

Developing new methods of investigation and preparing materials with novel structural features by which progress has been made in the field of condensed matter physics, materials science is the basic theme of present work. Earlier it was known that solids deviating from perfectly ordered structure may exhibit attractive features. These deviations are divided in two categories; thermally disordering and disordered incorporating defects such as vacancies, dislocations, and grain or interphase boundaries. The basic idea of nanocrystalline materials is to generate a new class of disordered solids by introducing such a high density of defect cores. As the grain size is reduced, large fraction of atoms may lie at grain boundaries which may contribute to enhancement in different properties of the materials. Metallurgists are trying to use this advancement in the form of powder metallurgy (P/M). Among the materials synthesized by P/M process tungsten carbide (WC), discovered in 1898 is one of them. Tungsten carbide is used as a bearing material and finds its application in cutting tool industries. Exceptional hardness makes it suitable for these applications. Although it is hard but it is brittle also so it is always used in a ductile metal matrix as a binder and cobalt is one of the best suitable binder. Nano-grained WC/Co composites are the potential to become the new materials for tools, dies and wear parts. Considering these aspects there is an increasing interest to reduce the size of tungsten carbide (WC) grain for its applications in different engineering components to extract the advantages of higher hardness and toughness.