How to Change the Performance of Tungsten Carbide?

Tungsten carbide is one of the most famous tool materials in modern industry. The time has come when people realize the importance and the great performance of tungsten carbide. Their wide applications in mining fields and oil fields are attributed to their properties, such as high hardness, wear resistance, impact resistance, shock resistance, and durability. In manufacturing, people are pursuing higher performance with better quality to achieve more complex work, which urgent they continuously research and develop in tungsten carbide products. People have to put every single idea of improving tungsten carbide into action. Here are some methods. 

1. Select better raw material and binder powder

The performance of tungsten carbide is mainly affected by the composition, tungsten carbide powder, and binder powder. The proportion of tungsten carbide powder and binder will change their hardness. As we all know, tungsten carbide is much harder than binder powder, like cobalt powder. So hardness will increase in principle as the binder cobalt powder decrease. But the minimum of the cobalt powder is 3%, otherwise, the tungsten carbide will be hard to be bonded together. 

The quality of raw materials is vital. Thus, the tungsten carbide powder and binder powder should be selected and purchased very carefully. And the raw material should be 100% purified.

2. Improve the structure of the tungsten carbide

All things considered, the structure of tungsten carbide products after sintered should be evenly distributed. If there is a “cobalt pool”, these tungsten carbide products are forbidden to sell out. And the particle size of raw material can also affect the structure of tungsten carbide. In manufacturing, workers should avoid the excessively large particles in the tungsten carbide powder or the cobalt powder to prevent the tungsten carbide from forming coarse tungsten carbide grains and cobalt pools during sintering.

3. Surface treatment

Generally, we will adopt some methods like surface hardening to improve the performance of tungsten carbide. The worker usually puts a layer of TiC or TiN on the surface of tungsten carbide tools.

4. Heat treatment

Heat treatment is common in factories, which is a controlled process used to alter the microstructure of metals and improve the performance of tungsten carbide. Take round shank bits as an example. After we insert the buttons into the teeth body, the bits will be heat treated.

In this article, four methods for improving performance are introduced. If you are interested in tungsten carbide products 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.