Improvement in Mechanical and Wear Properties of WC-Co by Ultrasonic Nanocrystal Surface Modification Technique

In this study, we investigated the effectiveness of an ultrasonic nanocrystal surface modification (UNSM) technique on the mechanical and wear properties of tungsten carbide (WC). The UNSM technique is a newly developed surface modification technique that increases the mechanical properties of materials by severe plastic deformation. The objective of this study was to improve the wear resistance of press die made of WC by applying the UNSM technique. We observed the microstructures of the untreated and UNSM-treated specimens using a scanning electron microscope (SEM), and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) was used to investigate the chemical composition. The SEM observations showed the pore size and the number of pores decreased after the UNSM treatment. We assessed the wear behavior of both the untreated and UNSM-treated specimens using a scratch test. The test results showed that the wear resistance of the UNSM-treated specimens increased by about 46% compared with the untreated specimens. This may be attributed to increased hardness, reduced surface roughness, induced compressive residual stress, and refined grain size following the application of the UNSM technique. In addition, we found that the UNSM treatment increased the carbon concentration to 63% from 33%. We expect that implementing the findings of this study will lead to an increase in the life of press dies.