Investigation on Additive Manufacturing of Tungsten Carbide-cobalt by Selective Laser Melting

The production of special interior contoured tools made of cemented carbide is a time- and cost-intensive multistage sintering process. An alternative for economic, flexible and automated production is provided by a laser-based, additive manufacturing Selective Laser Melting process (SLM). In a shortened process chain near-net-shape and special interior contoured tools can be manufactured energy- and resource-efficiently in small batch sizes. An increase of the tool life is achieved by the use of wear resistant and tough cemented carbide material. This paper focusses on the process behavior of the agglomerated and pre-sintered tungsten carbide-cobalt (WC-Co) powder material in the SLM process. Depending on the exposure parameters, various types of micro structures can be generated and the original material profile can be significantly changed during the laser material interaction.