High-Hardness Cemented Carbide With Nickel-Tungsten Alloy Binder

Cemented carbide for cutting tools, which is composed of carbide as a hard phase and metallic component as a metallic phase, mainly uses cobalt as the metallic phase due to the excellent mechanical properties of cobalt. However, as the demand for machining difficult-to-machine materials such as titanium and carbon fiber-reinforced plastics has recently increased, the development of high-hardness cemented carbide is necessary and the replacement of cobalt metal with a high-hardness alloy is required. In this study, we would like to introduce high-hardness cemented carbide fabricated using nickel-tungsten alloy as the metallic phase. First, nickel-tungsten alloy powder of the composition for formation of intermetallic compound confirmed through thermodynamic calculations was synthesized, and cemented carbide was prepared through the sintering process of tungsten carbide and the synthesized alloy powder. Through evaluating the mechanical properties of high-hardness cemented carbide with the nickel-tungsten alloy binder, the possibility of producing high-hardness cemented carbide by using the alloys with high-hardness was confirmed.