Vacuum Sintering and Performance of SiC Doped WC-10Ni Cemented Carbide

Nano SiC particle dispersion strengthened WC-10Ni cemented carbide composites were fabricated by high energy ball milling (HEBM) and vacuum sintering (VS). The effects of SiC content and vacuum sintering temperature on the microstructure and room temperature mechanical properties of SiC doped WC-10Ni cemented carbide composites were investigated. The results show that the well-combined and highly-densified (nearly 99.2%) WC-10Ni-SiC composites can be obtained by the VS technique at 1 450 and 1500 degrees C. The addition of SiC can not only restrain the growth of WC grains and play a role in refining grains, but also accelerate the densification of WC grain sintering. Also the Vickers hardness of the prepared composite materials improves to 16.49 GPa with the increase of SiC content. Their fracture toughness and flexural strength increase first and then decrease with the increase of the SiC addition. When the content of the SiC is 0.5wt%, the fracture toughness and flexural strength of WC-10Ni-SiC cemented carbide composites are 12.7 MPa.m(1/2) and 1126.1 MPa, respectively.