Hardness and Toughness of Carbide Zund Cutter

When it comes to tungsten carbide zund cutters, toughness and hardness are two essential characteristics of the cutting tool material. The toughness and hardness of the blade materials can be tested by tensile and impact tests. It seems that hardness and toughness are competing against each other. In this article, let’s get more information about hardness and toughness.

WHAT IS HARDNESS?

Hardness is a measure of the resistance to localized plastic deformation induced by either mechanical indentation or abrasion. Tungsten carbide zund cutters are made of high-quality tungsten carbide powder and binder powder, such as cobalt, nickel, and iron. Tungsten carbide is a kind of famous industry raw material, which can be harder than most modern materials. 

Many tests can be used to measure a material’s hardness, such as Rockwell Test, Brinell Test, Vickers Test, Knoop Test, and so on. 

Harder materials can resist deformation better than softer materials so they are applied for cutting, sawing, shearing, and chopping. During work, even when cutting hard material, the tungsten carbide zund cutters still retain the shape and keep cutting.

It is no doubt that high-hardness materials have many advantages over softer materials, but they also have some drawbacks, because they can be brittle and more susceptible to fatigue, resulting in breaking during work. 

WHAT IS TOUGHNESS?

Toughness is the ability of a material to absorb energy and plastically deform without fracturing. Toughness is the strength with which the material opposes rupture. For cutting tools, enough toughness is vital. Last week we received a video from our customer. He has two kinds of tungsten carbide cutters, one is easy to break, and the other one is not. This is about toughness. The tungsten carbide cutters with higher toughness are easier to break, while the cutters with lower toughness are harder.

When people get tungsten carbide cutters, they want to find one with both high hardness and toughness. However, tungsten carbide cutters in reality are very hard but low in toughness, or very tough, but are not very hard. To change this situation, we can add some hybrid materials in it, such as carbon fiber, which is more flexible and durable than large pieces of carbon alone. 

If you are interested in tungsten carbide cutters and want more information and details, you can CONTACT US by phone or mail at the left, or SEND US MAIL at the bottom of the page.