Journal of Materials Processing Technology 230 (2016) 42–49

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Journal of Materials Processing Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jmatprotec

Characteristics and removal mechanism in laser cutting of

cBN–WC–10Co composites
Cong Mao a,b,∗ , Xiaoli Sun a , Han Huang b , Chengwei Kang b , Mingjun Zhang a , Yueqin Wu b
a
Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Safety Design and Reliability Technology for Engineering Vehicle, Changsha 410114, China
b
School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering, The University of Queensland, QLD 4072, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Laser cutting of a cBN–WC–10Co composite material was carried out using a pulsed Nd: YAG laser.
Received 25 August 2015 The cutting characteristics, as well as the changes in microstructure and mechanical property, were
Received in revised form investigated. It was found that cracks were induced by laser machining on the sub-surface and the evi-
16 November 2015
dence of phase transformation from cBN to hBN was observed on the cut surface. Cutting parameters
Accepted 18 November 2015
had significant effect on the cut surface. A higher laser power produced a smoother cut surface, but a
Available online 22 November 2015
larger heat-affected zone, in comparison to the lower laser power used. No radical cracks were found on
the cross-section at the laser power of 100 W. The surface roughness and the heat-affected zone depth
Keywords:
cBN-WC-10Co
decreased with the increased cutting speed and the gas pressure. The material removal involved in the
Laser cutting laser cutting of cBN–WC–Co composite was attributed to the melting or evaporation of cBN and WC–Co.
Cutting tool The dropping of cBN particles from the cut surface was also found during the cutting at the laser power
Characteristic of 30 W for the loss of the supporting from the WC–Co matrix.
Removal mechanism © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Cubic boron nitride (cBN) has a cubic structure similar to dia-
mond and is one of the hardest materials, which is often used as
cutting tool materials. Moreover, cBN is much more stable chem-
ically when cutting ferrous metal and alloys, in comparison to
diamond. Therefore, cBN was used for machining hardened alloy
steels, nickel base super-alloys and chilled cast irons by Okada et al.
(2011) and Zhang et al. (2012) and excellent cutting performance
was found.
Graham (2008) pointed out that cBN is brittle and has poor flex-
ural strength. Li et al. (2014) also found that when cBN is used
as cutters, its low toughness becomes a severe issue. Meanwhile,
Chen et al. (2013) proposed that cemented tungsten carbides (cWC)
using cobalt as the binder material are widely used for tooling due
to its high strength and excellent fracture toughness (Sun et al.,
2010). It is thus expected that the combination of the high hardness
and excellent wear resistance of cBN and the adequate strength
and good fracture toughness of cemented carbide should provide
a material with excellent properties for cutting tools. Martínez
and Echeberria (2007) fabricated cBN–WC–Co composites using
∗ Corresponding author at: College of Automotive and Mechanical Engineering,
Changsha University of Science and Technology, China.
E-mail addresses: maocong315@aliyun.com, 20250911@qq.com (C. Mao).
hot isostatic pressing method. They found that near full densifi-
cation was obtained and there was no phase transformation of
cBN into low-hardness hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). Compos-
ites containing cBN phase dispersed in cemented carbide matrix
were consolidated by Rosinski and Michalski (2012) using a pulse
plasma sintering technique. The experimental results showed that
the addition of cBN to WC–Co increased the hardness of cWC. Wang
et al. (2014a) studied the effect of cBN particle size and volume frac-
tion on the properties of cBN–WC–Co composites by use of pulse
electric current sintering. They found that smaller cBN particle led
to lower sinter-ability of the composites due to its high specific sur-
face area. Zhang et al. (2014) found spark plasma sintering (SPS) is
a good sintering technique that permits densification of grains at
a relatively lower sintering temperature with a short holding time
and a fast heating rate, which can control the growth of WC grains
during sintering. For these obvious advantages, the SPS technique
was used to prepare cBN–WC–Co by Mao et al. (2015) and Yaman
and Mandal. (2014), and the wear tests of SPSed cBN–WC–Co were
performed by ball-on-disk contact. The experimental observations
showed that there was not obvious growth of WC grains and the
addition of cBN considerably enhanced the wear resistance of cWC.
Nevertheless, the excellent wear resistance, high hardness and
toughness of cBN–WC–Co composites also make them very diffi-
cult to be machined. Conventional machining of super-hard cutting
tools is carried out by grinding with a diamond wheel. However,

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2015.11.014
0924-0136/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 C. Mao et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 230 (2016) 42–49
Fig. 1. (a) The SEM image of the fracture surface of a cBN–WC–10Co composite specimen and the corresponding EDS spectra obtained from (b) the WC–Co matrix and (c)
the cBN particle.
Ventura et al. (2013) proposed that the interaction of cBN parti-
cles in the composite and diamond abrasives during grinding often
caused significant wheel wear. Therefore, grinding is mostly used
to finishing machine cBN–WC–Co tools in order to acquire the
required surface quality, rather than for rough machining.
Laser cutting is widely used for rough cutting of materials.
During laser cutting, a focused laser beam irradiates on the work-
piece surface and the material is quickly melt and evaporated, and
then the molten and evaporated material is blown away using
pressurized gas. Zhang et al. (2007) also found laser cutting was
little affected by the hardness, brittleness and wear resistance
of the workpiece material and was successfully utilized to pro-
cess hard–brittle materials. Therefore, laser cutting is an effective
method to machine cBN–WC–Co composites.
In this work, laser cutting of cBN–WC–10Co composite was car-
ried out using a pulsed Nd: YAG laser. The cutting characteristics
and the phase compositions of the cut surface were investigated
using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray diffractome-
ter (XRD). In particular, the heat-affected zone of the cut surface
was analyzed and the material removal mechanism was discussed.
2. Experimental details
The cBN–WC–10Co composite samples were fabricated using a
spark plasma sintering technique. The raw material powders con-
tained cBN, WC and Co, which were all commercially available. The
particle sizes of WC, Co and cBN powders are about 0.8 ␮m, 1.1 ␮m
43
and 40 ␮m, respectively. The powders were mixed at the volume
ratio of 30:70 (cBN to WC powder with 10 wt.% cobalt) and the pow-
der mixtures were fabricated using SPS at the sintering temperature
of 1250 ◦ C for 7 min to obtain samples of 40 mm in diameter and
2 mm in height. Fig. 1 shows a typical SEM image and its corre-
sponding EDS spectra of the fracture surface of a cBN–WC–10Co
composite specimen. EDS analysis indicates that the white zone
(Spectrum 1) and the black zone (Spectrum 2) are WC–Co matrix
and cBN particle, respectively. It can be seen in Fig. 1(a) that the
cBN particles are quite uniformly distributed in the WC–Co matrix.
Most of the particles appear fractured but still remain embedded
in WC–Co matrix. This indicates that the cBN particles have a good
bonding with the WC–Co matrix. The EDS analysis revealed that
no boron and nitrogen elements existed in the WC–Co matrix, as
shown in Fig. 1(b). However, a small number of Co and W elements
were observed on cBN particles, and Rosinski and Michalski (2012)
pointed out that this might be attributed to the reaction between
boron nitride and cobalt element or the spreading of tungsten into
cBN particles during SPS sintering.
A solid state Nd:YAG laser (LCP80N, Langfang Supower Co.) was
used to cut the cBN–WC–10Co composite samples, which had a
wavelength of 1064 nm and a pulse width of 50 ␮m. The high-
pressure air with a pressure of 0.2–0.8 MPa was injected on the
same axis to remove the molten material. Other laser processing
parameters used during the experiments are shown in Table 1.
The cBN–WC–10Co composite samples were cut into testing bars
of 2 × 5 × 10 mm3 by laser cutting, and the testing bars were cut
44 C. Mao et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 230 (2016) 42–49
Fig. 2. SEM images of the cut surfaces of cBN–WC–10Co composites cut at different laser powers of (a) 30 W, (b) 50 W, (c) 100W.
Table 1
Parameters used in laser cutting of cBN–WC–10Co.
Parameter Value
Wavelength (nm) 1064
Focal spot diameter (mm) 0.12
Pulse frequency (Hz) 100
Assistant gas Air
Gas nozzle diameter (mm) 0.5
Focus position Surface
by wire electro-discharge machining (WEDM) for cross-sectional
examination. The cut surfaces and cross-sectional surfaces of the
testing bars were then polished using diamond abrasive papers of
300, 500 and 800 in mesh size in sequence, and followed by pol-
ishing pastes until a smooth surface was obtained. The polished
testing bars were cleaned in an ultrasonic cleaner with acetone for
15 min, and then etched by a solution of nitrohydrochloric acid for
90 s. The etched testing bars were immediately rinsed with run-
ning water and dried with fan. SEM (Quanta 200, FEI Co.) was
adopted to examine the microstructures of the cut surfaces and the
cross-sectional surfaces. XRD (D/max 2500, Rigaku Co.) was used
to analyze the phase compositions of cut surfaces. Roughness val-
ues of cut surfaces were measured using a surface profilometer.
The micro-hardness of the cross-sectional surfaces was measured
using 402MVA digital micro-hardness tester (Wolpert Group) with
a load of 1 kg and a duration of 10 s. The tip of the indenter was dou-
ble checked using optical microscope before and after the test to
ensure there was no damage on the tip. The randomly distributed
cBN particles affected the indent size, so ten measurements were
carried out at the same depth below the cut surface, and then the
average value was used.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Surface characteristics
Fig. 2 shows the typical SEM images of the cut surfaces of the
cBN–WC–10Co composites using different laser powers with a
fixed cutting speed of 3 mm/s and a constant assistant gas pres-
sure of 0.4 MPa. As shown in Fig. 2, for the three different powers
used, an irregular and loose re-solidified layer was observed on all
the cut surfaces and the striations observed by Pfeifer et al. (2010)
on the laser-cut surfaces of alloy materials could not be seen. This is
because some molten material could not be blown away from the
cut surface by the assistant gas due to the relatively strong adhesion
force between the molten material and the solid substrate. It is also
believed that much more heat was transmitted from the molten
material to the solid substrate than the laser cutting of alloys, which
led to the decrease in temperature and hence the increase in the
porosity of the molten material on the solid substrate, which should
also contribute to the formation of the re-solidified layer. The irreg-
Parameter Value
Pulse width (␮s) 50
Laser power (W) 30, 50, 100
Cutting speed (mm/s) 0.5, 1, 2, 3
Assistant gas pressure (MPa) 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8
Power density (105 W/mm2 ) 5.3, 8.84, 17.68
ularity on the cut surface should be associated with the melting
and subsequent quick solidification of the cBN–WC–10Co com-
posite under the high cooling rate during laser cutting. It is also
seen from Fig. 2 that the texture of the cut surface was improved
with the increased laser power. This was because the fluidity of the
molted material increased with the laser power and thus resulted
in a thinner re-solidified layer.
Fig. 3 shows the SEM images of the cut surfaces after polishing.
The re-solidified layers in Fig. 2 were removed by polishing, so the
cBN particles and the WC–Co matrix are exposed. All the three cut
surfaces exhibit similar characteristics and micro-cracks near the
boundaries between the cBN particles and the WC–Co matrix can
be clearly seen. Inter-granular cracks are observed on some cBN
particles and lateral cracks are usually located inside the WC–Co
matrix. During pulsed Nd:YAG laser cutting, energy was injected
into the cBN–WC–10Co composites in one single pulse, which led
to instant over-heating and quick cooling of the material. Such a
high frequency heating/cooling cycle easily resulted in a high ten-
sile stress and hence the formation of the inter-granular cracks
on the cBN particles and lateral cracks on the WC–Co matrix. The
boundary cracks between cBN particles and WC–Co matrix should
be ascribed to the heat checking that originates primarily from the
different thermal expansion coefficients of the dissimilar materials.
Apparently, the cut surface after removing of the re-solidified layer
was not significantly affected by the laser power change.
Fig. 4 shows the effects of the laser processing parameters on
the roughness of the cut surfaces prior to polishing. As shown in
Fig. 4(a), the use of a greater laser power produced a slightly better
surface. This is because a higher power decreased the viscosity of
the molted material and thus resulted a denser re-solidified layer
with a finer microstructure, see Fig. 2, hence the surface rough-
ness decreased. It is seen in Fig. 4(b) that the surface roughness
decreased as the cutting speed increased. This can be interpreted
that the molten material had less time for conducting heat into the
cut surface and re-solidification, and hence less time for forming
dross during high-speed cutting.
Fig. 4 that the increase in the assistant gas pressure led to the
reduction in surface roughness of the cut surface. A higher gas pres-
sure used in laser cutting would induce a greater blowing force
transferred to the molten material, so more molten material could
be blown away from the cut surface. Therefore, the quantity of re-
 C. Mao et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 230 (2016) 42–49 45

Fig. 3. SEM images of the cut surfaces of cBN–WC–10Co composites cut at different laser powers of (a) 30 W, (b) 50 W and (d) 100 W. Note that all the re-solidified layers
were removed by polishing.

Fig. 4. Effects of processing parameters on the surface roughness.

solidified material on the cut surface became smaller, which thus
decreased the surface roughness. Riveiro et al. (2010) also found the
similar phenomenon that the roughness reduced with an increased
assistant gas pressure.
The effects of laser power, cutting speed and air pressure on the
surface roughness revealed in this study also agree well with the
theoretical analysis of Choudhury and Shirley (2010).
3.2. Subsurface characteristics
Fig. 5 shows the cross-sectional surfaces of the cBN–WC–10Co
composites cut at different laser powers with a compressed air
pressure of 0.4 MPa and a cutting speed of 3 mm/s. It is obvious
that all the cut surfaces of the WC–Co are smooth for the given
laser powers used. In Fig. 5(a), there are a few pits on the cut sur-
face at the laser power of 30 W, and the diameters of the pits (about
15 ␮m) are smaller than those of the cBN particles (40 ␮m). The cut
surface of the cBN particles is rough at the laser power of 50 W, as
shown in Fig. 5(b). In Fig. 5(c), the cut surface of the cBN particles
is smooth at the laser power of 100 W.
From Fig. 5, the heat-affected zone of the cut cBN–WC–10Co
composites can be seen underneath the cut surface. It is found that
the depth of the heat-affected zone is about 8 ␮m at the laser power
of 30 W and is 10.8 ␮m at 100 W. In other words, the higher laser
power used resulted in a deeper heat-affected zone. Here, the heat-
affected zone is defined as the region where the work material is not
melted during laser cutting but its microstructure and mechanical
behavior are affected and/or changed by the intense heat induced
by laser cutting. The depth of the heat-affected zone was measured
under SEM.
The effects of the cutting parameters on the heat-affected zone
depth are shown in Fig. 6. It is clear that the heat-affected zone
depth increased with the increased laser power, but decreased with
the increase in cutting speed and air pressure. Laser power could be
the most important variable affecting the heat-affected zone depth,
as the extent and magnitude of heat-affected zone depends pri-
marily on the quantity and concentration of heat input during laser
cutting. The increase in laser power resulted in more heat input into
the work material underneath the cut surface, and hence a deeper
heat-affected zone, as shown in Fig. 6(a). The higher the cutting
speed was, the shorter burning time, the smaller the heat-affected
zone depth was, as clearly demonstrated in Fig. 6(b). The higher
assistant gas pressure promoted a more efficient removal of the
molten material, which reduced the heat input into the subsurface,
hence smaller heat-affected zone.
Radial cracks were also found in the subsurface of the specimens
cut at the laser powers of 30 W and 50 W, as shown in Fig. 7(a) and
(b). Boundary cracks were also observed between cBN and WC–Co
matrix at the lower laser power. As laser cutting is a high tempera-
ture process, temperature gradient is unavoidable on the machined
subsurface, which induces high thermal stresses and may cause the
formation of micro-cracks. Nevertheless, in this study no micro-
cracks were found on the specimen cut at higher laser power of
100 W, as shown in Fig. 7(c).
3.3. Thermal stability of cBN
Fig. 8 shows the XRD patterns of the cBN–WC–10Co compos-
ites before and after laser cutting. It is seen from Fig. 8(a) that no
diffraction peaks of hBN can be observed on the surface of the
46 C. Mao et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 230 (2016) 42–49

Fig. 5. SEM images of cross-sectional surfaces of cBN–WC–10Co composites cut at different laser powers of (a) 30 W, (b) 50 W and (c) 100 W.

Fig. 6. Effects of (a) cutting power and (b) laser cutting speed on the heat-affected zone depth.

Fig. 7. Cracks of cross-sectional surfaces of cBN–WC–10Co composites cut at different laser powers of (a) 30 W, (b) 50 W and (c) 100 W.

cBN–WC–10Co composite before laser cutting. However, a very
weak peak for hBN appears on all the spectra of the cut surfaces,
indicating that the phase transformation from cBN to hBN was
induced during laser cutting. It should be noted that the intensi-
ties of cBN and hBN phases are much lower than the expected peak
intensities based on the volume fraction in the composites. This
can be attributed to the very high mass-absorption coefficient of
WC–Co compared with both phases of cBN and hBN. The effect of
laser cutting on the cut surface of cBN–WC–10Co composites is
of interest due to low stability of cBN at high cutting temperature.
Wang et al. (2014b) proposed that cBN was first transformed to hBN
at 1800 K and then hBN was gradually decomposed into gaseous
nitrogen and gaseous boron at 2400–2600 K during laser cutting of
cBN. It is also known that hBN phase has lower hardness with a
graphite structure in comparison with cBN phase. As a result, the
phase transformation from cBN to hBN will result in the hardness
decrease in work material.
3.4. Micro-hardness
Fig. 9 shows the micro-hardness measured on the cross-
sectional surface of the cut cBN–WC–10Co composite at the laser
power of 100 W and the cutting speed of 3 mm/s, plotted as a func-
tion of the depth from the cut surface. The micro-hardness near the
cut surface was low, and then increased gradually with the increas-
ing depth. In other words, the micro-hardness of the cut surface
was lower than that of the bulk material. The effect of laser cutting
on the sub-surface hardness of cBN–WC–10Co composites depends
on: (1) the formation of the re-solidified layer, as presented in Fig. 2;
(2) the presence of micro-cracks caused by residual tensile stress,
 C. Mao et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 230 (2016) 42–49
Fig. 8. XRD patterns of cBN–WC–10Co composites cut at (a) the cutting speed of 3 mm/s and (b) the laser power of 50 W.
Fig. 9. The Vickers hardness of the subsurface plotted as a function of the depth
from the cut surface.
as shown in Fig. 7 and (3) the phase transformation of hBN induced,
as presented in Fig. 8. Moreover, Melookaran et al. (2012) proposed
47
that laser cutting might break the bridging of Co binder between
cBN and WC, thus decreased the hardness of the material.
4. Discussion
It is well known that laser cutting could not be completed pro-
vided when the laser power density was lower than the threshold
of laser power density for material melting or evaporation. Riveiro
et al. (2010) proposed that the power density of a single laser pulse
is defined as the average laser power divided by the focused spot
size considering the pulse width and the pulse frequency. Based on
the laser cutting parameters listed in Table 1, the laser power densi-
ties used in this study are 5.3 × 105 W/mm2 , 8.84 × 105 W/mm2 and
17.68 × 105 W/mm2 corresponding to laser powers of 30 W, 50 W
and 100 W, respectively. Li (1993) proposed that the critical evap-
oration energy Pc for the laser cutting material can be calculated as
follows:

k (Te − T0 ) 
PC = (1)
2A ␣t 0
48 C. Mao et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 230 (2016) 42–49
Fig. 10. Schematic illustration of the removal during laser cutting of cBN–WC–10Co composites cut at power of (a) 30 W and (b) 100 W.
Table 2
The thermo–physical properties of the composite components.
Property WC Co cBN
Thermal conductivity (W/cm K) 0.46 0.71
Thermal diffusivity (cm2 /s) 0.114 0.187
Thermal absorption rate 0.4 0.26
Melting point (K) 3413 1765 3500
Boiling point (K) 6273 3173 4600
Density (g/cm3 ) 15.63 8.71
Critical evaporation energy 0.255 0.227
(×105 W/mm2 )
where k is the thermal conductivity; Te is the evaporation temper-
ature; T0 is the ambient temperature; A is the thermal absorption
ratio; ␣ is the thermal diffusivity and t0 is the laser pulse width.
The thermo–physical parameters of WC, Co and cBN are shown
in Table 2 (Melaibari et al., 2012; Wang et al., 2005; Zhang and Deng,
2007). The critical evaporation energies were calculated based on
Eq. (1). It is seen from Table 2 that the critical evaporation energies
of WC and Co are both one to two orders of magnitude lower than
the laser power densities used in this study. This indicates that WC
and Co can be vaporized completely during laser cutting in this
study. This is why the cut surface of the WC–Co was smooth, as
shown in Fig. 5.
It can also be found from Table 2 that the critical evaporation
energy of cBN is 3.201 × 105 W/mm2 , smaller than one fifth of the
power density for laser power of 100 W. Therefore, the cBN particles
could also be evaporated. The smooth cut surface of the cBN parti-
cles obtained at the higher power laser cutting shown in Fig. 5(c)
supports the hypothesis.
The power density at the laser power of 50 W was two or three
times of the critical evaporation energy of cBN particles. In the-
ory, cBN particles can be vaporized completely. However, Eq. (1)
is valid when laser irradiates the object at rest. During laser cut-
ting, the effective laser power could be decreased and the nominal
power must be enhanced for the evaporation of cBN particles. As
the experimental results showed that the cBN particles were still
intact under this power, it is thus suggested that the effective power
density during laser cutting at 50 W should be insufficiently high
to evaporate but only to partially melt the cBN particles. After the
molten cBN was blown away from the cut surface by the assistant
gas, a rough surface could be observed, as shown in Fig. 5(b).
Fig. 10 schematically illustrates the removal of the composite
material during laser cutting. As shown in Fig. 10(a), during a low
power laser cutting, the cBN particles at the center of the focal spot
melted and were blown away by the assistant gas, but the cBN
particles near the focal spot were only heated and maintained as a
solid phase. At the same time, WC–Co matrix both at the center of
the focal spot and near the focal spot were all melted and blown
away by the assistant gas owing to the low critical evaporation
energies of both WC and Co. Therefore, the cBN particles resided in
13 the WC–Co matrix near the focal spot lost the supporting from the
1.68 WC–Co matrix, dropped off the cut surface and then were blown
0.17 away by the assistant gas. As a result, some pits were left on the
cut surface, as shown in Fig. 5(a). As for high power laser cutting
presented in Fig. 10(b), the cBN particles both at the center of the
3.45
3.201 focal spot and near the focal spot were all melted for the high power
density, and thus a same smooth cut surface for cBN particles and
WC–Co matrix could be obtained, as shown in Fig. 5(c).
In general, a higher laser power led to a greater thermal load,
which increased the temperature gradient and thermal stress in the
cutting region, which would create a greater tendency for cracking.
However, this is contradictory to our experimental observations
shown in Fig. 7 and the simulation results of Li and Sheng (1995).
It is understood that the laser power can significantly affect the
kerf width. For a given cutting speed, the higher laser power would
result in a wider kerf. The wider kerf was favorable for the dif-
fusion of cutting thermal energy, so a lower thermal stress level
on the cut surface could be obtained. Under such circumstance,
the tendency for initiating micro-cracks on the cut surface would
decrease. Smith et al. (1992) also proposed that the temperature
gradient decreased with the laser power, which indicated less ther-
mal stress and small tendency for cracking. The crack initiation
during laser cutting might be based on the thermo–elastic theory
(Veres et al., 2013), i.e., crack initiated when the maximum tensile
stress exceeded the corresponding strength. When the maximum
tensile stress did not reach the fracture strength of the material,
the crack-free laser cutting could be achieved, as shown in Fig. 7(c).
Therefore, a higher laser power was superior to a lower laser power
for laser cutting of cBN–WC–10Co composites in terms of the crack
initiation.
5. Conclusions
A pulsed Nd:YAG laser was used to cut cBN–WC–10Co compos-
ites. The results are summarized as follows.
(1) Boundary cracks, inter-granular cracks on the cBN particles
and lateral cracks on the WC–Co matrix were found on the cut sur-
faces. The XRD analysis showed that the phase transformation from
cBN to hBN occurred during laser cutting.
(2) The micro-hardness of the sub-surface was lower than that
of the bulk material, most probably due to the formation of the
re-solidified layer and phase transformation from cBN to hBN. The
presence of micro-cracks and the damage of the Co binders might
also contribute to the hardness decrease.
 C. Mao et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 230 (2016) 42–49
(3) A smoother cut surface but a larger heat-affected zone was
obtained during the laser cutting at the higher laser power of 100 W,
in comparison to the lower laser power of 30 W used. Also, no radial
cracks were generated at the laser power of 100 W.
(4) The surface roughness and the heat-affected zone depth
decreased with the increased cutting speed and assistant gas pres-
sure.
Acknowledgements
This project was sponsored by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (grant no. 51375061) and Changsha City
Planned Science and Technology Project (grant no. K1406031-11).
Han HUANG would like to acknowledge the financial support from
Australia Research Council (ARC) under Future Fellow Program
(FT110100557). The authors would thank Dr. Qiuyan Huang for the
assistance in EDS characterization.
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