Superior Cemented Carbides Obtained by Plasma Spraying - Dream or Reality?

摘要

Ordinary hard-facings obtained by plasma spraying are characterized by a combination of hardness,wear-resistance and fracture toughness inferior to that of conventional WC-Co cemented carbides.Therefore, in the majority of applications they are incomparable with WC-Co materials and cannotsubstitute them. A fundamentally novel approach to the fabrication of WC-based cemented carbides inform of hard-facing obtained by plasma spraying was elaborated. The microstructure of the novel WCbasedcemented carbides depends on the plasma spraying parameters and consists of carbide grainsembedded in a Fe-based binder. The binder comprises nano-precipitates of η-phase and mixed Cr-Fecarbides, which are embedded in a nanostructured binder matrix.