5th International & 26th All India Manufacturing Technology, Design and Research Conference (AIMTDR 2014) December

12th–14th, 2014, IIT

Guwahati, Assam, India

TRANSVERSE RUPTURE STRENGTH OF SOLID LUBRICANT

CUTTING TOOL MATERIAL

A.Muthuraja1, S.Senthilvelan2*
1
Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati 781039, a.muthuraja@iitg.ernet.in
2*
Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati 781039, ssvelan@iitg.ernet.in

Abstract
Solid lubricant bearings and gears find many engineering applications due to its clean environment and maintenance
free characteristics. Solid lubricant based cutting tool has potential to replace conventional cutting tool under dry
machining. In this work, tungsten carbide based material with various weight percentage of solid lubricant, calcium
fluoride was considered. Cobalt and stearic acid were considered for binder and process control agent respectively.
Materials were milled in the planetary ball mill and milled powders were compacted uniaxially and sintered in a
tube furnace. Developed materials were evaluated for the transverse rupture strength with the aid of developed
fixture and servo hydraulic universal testing facility. From the investigation, tungsten carbide with 5 wt.% calcium
fluoride found to be superior over other investigated materials. Failure morphology of the fractured test specimen
reveals the role of solid lubricant over transverse rupture strength.
Keywords: Transverse Rupture strength, Solid Lubricant, Cutting Tool.

1 Introduction and transverse rupture strength were found to decrease,

Tungsten carbide based metals have been used for
cutting tools and other wear-resistant components due to
its high hardness, good strength, excellent wear and
erosion resistance. Transverse rupture strength (TRS) is
used as an index for the strength for cutting tool
materials. Various research investigations have been
conducted to improve this strength as well as
tribological performance with ultra fine size particles,
reinforcements, surface coating and material addition.
Goudarzi and Akhlaghi (2013) studied the effect of
nanosize silicon carbide (2.5-7%) with pure aluminium.
With the increase in silicon carbide amount, milled
particle size found to reduce with increase in
flowability. Fine size particles contribute to the
increased density and micro hardness. Similar behaviour
is also observed with aluminium magnesium matrix.
Sharifi et al. (2011) developed and evaluated the
mechanical properties of aluminium reinforced with
boron carbide (5-15%). With the increase in boron
carbide, hardness found to increase due to the presence
of extremely harder phase as well as reduction in
particle size. Tousi et al. (2011) studied the effect
alumina (1-7 %) on aluminium. With the increase in
alumina, hardness of the composite found to increase
due to the presence of hard particles. Lin et al. (2012)
studied the effect of molybdenum (1%) on mechanical
properties of WC-TiC-Ni cemented carbides. Density
due to the presence of pores. Liu et al. (2006) studied
the effect of TiC and TiN (0-10 %) on the mechanical
properties of titanium carbo nitride based cermets. With
the addition of TiC, TRS found to increase upto 10 %
due to its greyish ring microstructure and ceramic phase.
TRS found to increase with addition of TiN upto 5 %,
and decreases beyond due to the release of nitrogen and
formation of pores. Liu et al. (2003) studied the effect
of Mo (4-12 %) on the mechanical properties of TiC
based cermets with nano TiN. Due to the coarser
ceramic phase of Mo, flexural strength of the cermet
found to reduces. Fractography of the test specimen
revealed trans-granular and inter-granular fractures.
Wang et al. (2010) studied the influence of Mo (1-7%)
on the microstructure and mechanical properties of TiC-
based cermets. Mo found to improve the wettability and
refine the grains of the hard phase. Transverse rupture
strength found to increase with increase in Mo.
Momozawa et al. (2012) investigated the effect of
manganese (1-5%) over TiC/TiB2 base cermets.
Hardness and TRS found to increase upto 1 %. Beyond
this amount, manganese evaporates and form residual
pores resulted in reduction of TRS. Song et al. (2014)
reported the effect of titanium carbide (10-30 %) on
ternary titanium boride. Higher amount of titanium
carbide lowers the pores; increases density thereby
increases micro hardness and flexural strength. Suzuki
and Hayashi (1966) studied the effect TiC(6-17 %) in

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TRANSVERSE RUPTURE STRENGTH OF SOLID LUBRICANT CUTTING TOOL MATERIAL
the tungsten carbide material. 6 % TiC alloy exhibited
higher strength than that of 11 and 17 %. Beyond this
amount, TRS found to decrease due to the poor
wettability. Martin et al. (2007) investigated the uniaxial
compaction of bismuth-tantalum composites. Ta is
considerably harder and stiffer than Bi. Yield strength of
the composite found to increase upto 0.3 % of Ta and
decreases beyond. Deng et al. (2005) studied the effect
of solid lubricants, CaF2, MoS2 and BN (5-15 %)
content on flexural and hardness of Al2O3/TiC
composites. With the addition of these solid lubricants,
hardness as well as flexural strength found to decrease
due to the formation of micro crack in the sintered
materials. From the literature, it is observed that
reinforcement and solid lubricant has considerable
effect on mechanical strength. Hence there is a need to
understand the effect of solid lubricant amount on the
mechanical strength of the proposed tungsten carbide
based solid lubricant materials.
2 Experimental Procedure
Commercially available tungsten carbide (WC) of
15-18 µm size with 99.8% purity (Rapicut carbides) is
considered as a base material. Cobalt (Co) of 20-30 µm
size with 99.5% purity (Loba Chemie) is considered as a
binder material. Calcium fluoride (CaF2) of 170-180 µm
size with 98% of purity (Loba Chemie) is considered as
a lubricant material for the proposed cutting tool
material. Planetary ball milling and the ball-milling time
was selected as 40 hrs, the weight ratio of ball-to-
powder was 5:1, and the rotation speed was 210 RPM.
Plate speed and powder ball ratio was decided so as to
avoid contamination and reported elsewhere
(Senthilvelan and Robi (2008)). Tungsten carbide was
milled with 10 wt% of cobalt and 3-10 wt% of calcium
fluoride for 40 hrs in the planetary ball milling. 4 wt %
of stearic acid was added to avoid cold welding during
milling. Milled powders were compacted at 400 MPa
with the aid of uniaxial tensile testing machine (UTE
20). Later green compacted specimens 40 × 16 × 5 mm
size as per the ASTM B331-95 for transverse rupture
strength evaluation and sintered at 1450°C in a tube
furnace (Bysakh, Okay 70T7) under nitrogen
atmosphere. Density of the sintered specimen was
measured by the Archimedes’ method (ASTM B962-
08). Sintered sample surface was grounded and polished
to check hardness with the aid of Rockwell hardness
tester (FIE, RASN (E)). Diamond indenter of scale A
with 60 kgf load was utilized. Detailed milling and
characteristics of the proposed material were reported
elsewhere (Muthuraja and Senthilvelan 2014)
3 Results and Discussion
3.1 Basic Material Characteristics
To understand the effect of solid lubricant, various
amount of calcium fluoride (3, 5, 7 and 10 wt %) were
considered for the development of tungsten carbide
based solid lubricant material. Figure 1 shows the
effects of solid lubricant on the relative density and
Rockwell hardness of the sintered composites. With the
addition of CaF2, hardness and density initially
decreases then increases and finally decreases. Among
the considered materials, WC with 5 % CaF2 exhibits
superior hardness as well as density. From the results, it
is observed that insufficient and excessive amount of
CaF2 hamper the compressibility which results in poor
density and hardness. Kato et al. (2003) as well as Lu et
al. (2001) also observed similar behaviour in their
investigations.
Figure 1 Density and hardness of the test material.
Kato et al. (2003) reported the effect of MoS2 (5-40%)
on the tribological behaviour of copper-tin composites.
It is observed that composite hardness found to increase
up to 5 % of MoS2, above which hardness found to
decrease due to the excessive brittle sulphur phase and
pores. Lu et al. (2001) developed Ni/CeF3/graphite
composites with different amounts of graphite (1-5 %)
and evaluated tribological performance. Hardness found
to increases upto 3 %, and decreases beyond. Li et al.
(2008) reported the effect of Mo (5-15 %) on the
hardness of titanium carbo nitride cermets. With
addition of Mo, hardness found to increase then
decreases beyond 10 %. This behavior is due to the
refinement of grains up to 10 % and no such grain
reinforcement beyond 10 %.
3.2 Transverse Rupture Strength
Sintered test specimens were evaluated for its
transverse rupture strength through three point bending
test with the aid of servo hydraulic dynamic testing
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5th International & 26th All India Manufacturing Technology, Design and Research Conference (AIMTDR 2014) December 12th–14th, 2014, IIT
Guwahati, Assam, India
machine (Instron, 8801J). Figure 2 shows the developed
fixture and tests were carried out as per the ASTM
B406-96. Transverse rupture strength TRS = 3PL/2bh2,
where TRS is in MPa; P is the applied force to fracture
in N ; L is the distance between two parallel supports,
mm; b and h is the width and height of the samples
respectively in mm. At least three trails were carried on
every material to evaluate TRS.
Figure 2 Developed fixture for TRS evaluation
Figure 3 shows the effect of solid lubricant on the
transverse rupture strength. TRS also exhibit similar
behaviour as hardness and density.
Figure 3 Effect of solid lubricant on transverse
rupture strength
With the addition of CaF2, TRS initially reduces then
increases then finally decreases. At 0 and 3 %(
insufficient CaF2) as well at 10 % (excessive CaF2) poor
bonding between tungsten carbide particle is exhibited
and confirmed by the presence of spherical
agglomerates at the fractured surfaces.
Figure 4a shows the spherical shape agglomerates
in the fractured surface of WC-Co without CaF2.
Presence of spherical agglomerates confirms the
sintering defects. Similar features were also observed at
the fractured surface of WC-Co with 10 % CaF2.
Figure 4 Fractured surface of the test material (a)
WC without CaF2 (b) WC with 5% CaF2
However fractured surface of the WC-Co with 5 %
CaF2 (Figure 4b), doesn’t show any such defect particles
were observed with good bonding at grain boundaries.
Gu and Shen (2007) observed similar spherical
agglomerates called balling phenomenon while laser
sintering copper based metal powder. During sintering,
excessive melting reduces the surface energy and melt
break up into agglomerates of spherical shape. Li et al
(2012) also observed balling behavior while laser
sintering stainless steel and nickel powder due to the
poor wetting resulted in inferior sintering. In sufficient
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TRANSVERSE RUPTURE STRENGTH OF SOLID LUBRICANT CUTTING TOOL MATERIAL

and excess amount of CaF2 deteriorates wetting as well A

as contributes to the excess melting. Beyond 5 % CaF2,
transverse rupture strength of tungsten carbide material
reduces. Poor bonding was observed on test material
having more than 7 wt.% of CaF2 due to presence of
more soft materials in the boundaries of WC and Co.
Kato et al. (2003) and Lu et al. (2001) also observed
similar strength behavior with graphite. Kato et al.
(2003) reported the effect of graphite (5-40 %) on the
bending strength of copper-tin composites. With the
increase in graphite upto 5 %, an increase in bending
strength is observed then drops down due to the
generation of pores. Lu et al. (2001) developed
Ni/CeF3/graphite composites with different amounts of
graphite (1-5%) and evaluated the mechanical B
performance. Compressive strength increases upto 3 %
due to the formation of carbide phase and decreases
beyond this value due to the nonexistence of carbide
phase. Huang et al. (2009) studied the influence of solid
lubricants, BaF2.CaF2 (5-20%). With the increase in
BaF2, hardness and TRS found to reduces due to the
poor interparticle adhesion. Li et al. (2008) reported the
effect of Mo (5-15 %) on the bending strength of
titanium carbonitride cermets. It was found that the
bending strength increased with the increase of Mo
content due to the improved wettability between
ceramic and metallic phase.
To confirm the presence of all added metals, EDX
was taken. Figure 5 shows EDX data of WC-Co with 7 C
wt. % CaF2. It is conformed that white phase (points A)
was showing all components, the another white phase
(point B) was calcium fluoride, grey phase (point C,D)
showing WC and all components respectively. Result
revealed the presence of solid lubricant in fractured
specimen after sintering.

Figure 5 Energy Dispersive X-Ray analysis showing

the presence of included material

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5th International & 26th All India Manufacturing Technology, Design and Research Conference (AIMTDR 2014) December 12th–14th, 2014, IIT
Guwahati, Assam, India
Conclusion
Present study reveals significant effect of solid
lubricant calcium fluoride on density, hardness and
transverse rupture strength of tungsten carbide based
solid lubricant material. Tungsten carbide with 5 %
calcium fluoride exhibits superior density, hardness and
transverse rupture strength.
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