wc tungsten carbide is a very hard, tough material that is used in a number of industries. It is commonly found in top hammer rock drill bits, downhole hammers, roller-cutters, long wall plough chisels, long wall shearer picks, raiseboring reamers, and tunnel boring machines.
It is a very durable material that can be forged or formed into many shapes to meet application requirements. It is particularly well suited for high pressure applications due to its elasticity which helps prevent face distortion.
There are a variety of methods to manufacture WC including: vacuum metallurgy, thermal plasma reaction, and liquid phase reduction carbonization. These processes have their advantages and disadvantages.
Vacuum metallurgy is an inexpensive method to produce WC that is easily accessible by a small company, as it does not require extensive investment in equipment or labor. The process involves the use of a heated gas to create a molten tungsten metal alloy, which is then cooled to ambient temperature in an air atmosphere.
Thermal plasma is a more expensive method that requires large-scale equipment and extensive research to develop, but it offers the potential for high productivity and has the added benefit of not needing the addition of a metal binder. It also produces a tungsten carbide powder that has a higher density than vacuum metallurgy, which is essential to creating WC tools or hardmetal cermets.
Liquid phase sintering, which uses a molten liquid to form a solid product, has also been developed for producing WC. It consolidates a WC/Co nanocomposite powder into sintered bulk parts with excellent hardness in excess of 93 HRA, with WC grains in the order of 200 - 300 nm and Co phase uniformly distributed on the grain boundaries.
