The Strength of WC-Co Cemented Carbide in Relation to Structural Defects* By Hisashi Suzuki** and Kozi Hayashi** ‘The strength of cemented carbides has been investigated by many researchers in relation to the factors such as mean grain size of carbide, mean free path of binder, binder phase composition, etc ‘At present, however, the strength seems to remain unsolved. Thus, the present studies on the above subject are undertaken employing a new approach with an idea that the strength of cemented carbides ‘would closely be connected with a small amount of microstructural defects in sintered specimens, ‘Asa result, it was found that the defects which substantially correspond with micropores, coarse WC grains, and binder-pools usually acted as the source of fracture in conventional alloys, and the transverse-rupture strength of the alloy was directly controlled by the dimension, the location, etc., of the above defects. Tt was also found that the strength, for instance, of WC-10%Co alloy with no those defects would markedly increase up to a value higher than about 400 kg/mm? [ac- cording to the Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS)]. Therefore, more experiments would be needed to make clear the nature of the above factors in order to explain the strength of cemented carbides. (Received November 13, 1974) 1. Introduction It is well known that various factors affecting the strength of WC-Co cemented carbides include the amount of the binder phase, mean grain size of carbide, grain size distribution, mean free path of binder, carbon content of the alloy (binder phase composition), sample volume, etc. The reviews concerning the effects of these factors have been published by Exner et al.( and by Suzuki). Besides these factors, the stress-induced transformation of the binder phase", the domain size of the binder phase“), the residual compressive stress due to grind- ing, etc., should be noted as other im- portant ones. However, the exact mechanism of these factors affecting the strength of cemented carbides seems to remain unsolved. In fact, the actual strength of the cemented carbides can hardly be explained by various theories regard- ing the strength such as proposed by Kreimer et al.', Gurland'®), and Nabarro et al.) be- cause only one or two of the above factors have * The original paper in Japanese was published in J. Japan Inst. Metals, 38 (1974), 1013. ** Department of Metallurgy and Materials Science, Faculty of Engineering, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113, Japan. ‘Trans. JIM been incorporated into the theories. On the other hand, it was confirmed in a recent experiment by the present authors!” that the transverse fracture of cemented car- bides did not initiate on the tension surface, but usually in the interior of specimens, when the surface of specimens was in the ground state. Namely, the radial markings of fracture were always observed on the fracture surface and they started in a certain small area at a position very near the tension surface; and this small area showed a relatively smooth surface, cor- responding to so-called white spots (a kind of fracture mirror”) in glasses or polycrystalline ceramics). Thus, it was suggested that some microstructural defects should be contained in this spot and these defects directly controlled the strength of each specimen. Therefore, it is considered that the strength of cemented car- bides can be clearly understood by examining the above defects which would act as a source of fracture. From this point of view, the present study was undertaken to make clear the char- acteristics of the fracture source and the strength of cemented carbides which depends upon dimensions and locations of the fracture source. TL. Specimens and Experimental Procedures Using commercially available WC and Co 1975. Vol. 16354 ‘Hisashi Suzuki and Kozi Hayashi powders as starting materials, a mixture of the powders was treated in a wet ball mill, dried, pressed, and subsequently vacuum-sintered at temperatures of 1350~1380°C for 1 hr. Two sorts of specimens, that is, the conventional WC-10%Co high carbon two-phase alloys with a mean carbide grain size of about 1.74 and WC-10°%Co high carbon two-phase alloys with nearly the same mean grain size as above but having a small amount of coarse WC grains or binder-pools (intentionally introduced by inter- mixing the coarse carbide powder or by varing the sintering condition), were used in this study. The transverse-rupture strength of the former alloys was in the range of distribution of about 220~350 kg/mm? according to the Japanese Industrial Standardt (JIS H 5501) and that of the latter was about 100~320 kg/mm?. It was shown by observation on fracture surfaces, as described later, that, for instance, micropores (one of defects) of less than about 120 in the larger axis were present in the white spot in both. of the specimens. However, these pores were hardly observed on the polished cross-section by microscopy, because the number of pores in this case was extremely few compared with that of A-1 or B-1 type in ASTM Designation!” Four side surfaces of the sintered specimens were ground in parallel with their longitudinal axis by using a diamond wheel with about 70. diamond powder for obtaining JIS specimens. After the transverse-rupture strength test, the fracture surface in each specimen was examined; and the dimensions of the white spot, and the dimensions and the location of the defects were first measured by using an optical microscope or a scanning electron microscope if necessary. Here, the location of the defects was expressed by the two quantities; that is, the distance from the tension surface to the defect (At) and the distance from the vertical plane through span center to the defect (A/) as schematically shown in Fig. 1. Next, the relations between the trans- Dimensions of specimens—4 x 8x24 mm; Span— 20 mm; Specimens were loaded with a cemented carbide bar of 2 mmg diameter at the center of the span, The transverse-rupture strength deter- ‘mined according to JIS is usually lower than the value obtained by ASTM Standard and the former value is about 0.9 times the latter. Compression surface Span center Fig. 1 Schematic drawing of location of the source of fracture, Ar; distance from the tension surface to the defect, A/; distance from the vertical plane through the span center to the defect.(x 5) verse-rupture strength (4,,) and the dimensions of white spots or of structural defects, the rela- tion between the dimensions of white spots and structural defects, and the relations between two sorts of dimensions as above and the ex- ternal stress (04) acting on the defects at the moment of fracture were investigated in detail to clarify the role of the defects in the observed strength of WC-Co cemented carbides TH. Experimental Results ‘An example of the macrostructures of the white spots developed on the transverse- ruptured surface of the alloy is shown in Photo. 1. The examination of these macro- structures revealed that the white spot cor- responded to a comparatively flat surface with Photo. 1 An example of macrostructures of white spots observed on transverse-ruptured surface of WC-10%Co alloy.( 5)‘The Strength of WC-Co Cemented Carbide in Relation to Structural Defects 355 Photo. 2 Microstructures of three kinds of defects as source of fracture. (a) micropore (b) coarse WC rain (c) binder-pool. (400) a small area, from which radial markings of fracture started, and, in addition, it was generally on the plane perpendicular to the tension surface of the specimen. The microstructural defects were always ob- served in the white spot as expected, as illus- trated in Photo. 2. There appeared in general three kinds of defects, ie., micropores (a), coarse WC grain (b), and binder-pool (c). In this case, coarse WC grain and binder-pool fractured transgranularly. However, as the grain size of coarse WC decreased towards the mean grain size of the specimen (about 1.71), the interfacial fracture across WC/WC or WC/binder naturally increased by a small amount. As to the micropores, step patterns were observed on the inner surface as shown in Photo. 3(b), which indicates that the pore had actually existed during the sintering stage. In this study, the dimension of white spots was conveniently expressed by their diameters because they were usually almost circular or semicircular when they were very near the surface; the dimensions of the three kinds of defects were expressed by the length of the major axis (2a), assuming that the shape of defects on the fracture surface was approxi- Photo. 3 Scanning electron microstructures of white spot (containing pore) and its neighborhood (a), and inner surface of pore (b), White spot is com- paratively flat surface, enclosed by arrows. (a)%20 (b) x 1800 [ear owe wan eae 8 ° § & 8 Transverse-Ruptre Strength tn) 8 or Diameter of White Spots (11) Fig. 2 Relations between transverse-rupture strength and the diameter of white spots. mated to an ellipse. In rare cases of interfacial fractures, the interfacial crack length (sub- stantially approximate to the dimension of WC grain) was taken as the dimension of the defect. The relation between a, and the diameter of white spot, and that between g,, and the dimen- sion of defects are shown in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3, respectively. Figure 4 shows the distribution of Gm aS a function of the location of defects. Figures 2~4 show that no close correlations were observed between @,, and these variables. Figure 5 shows that the relations between the