Research Status of Materials of Carbide Cutting Tools

Ⅰ. Surface, overall heat treatment and cycle heat treatment of carbide cutting tools

1. Nitriding and boronizing the surface of carbide cutting tools with good toughness can effectively improve their surface abrasion resistance.

2. The overall heat treatment of carbide cutting tools with good abrasion resistance but poor strength and toughness can change the bonding composition and structure in the material, reduce the adjacency degree of the WC hard phase, and thus improve the strength and toughness of the carbide cutting tools.

3. The use of cycle heat treatment technology to relieve or eliminate the stress between grain boundaries can improve the comprehensive performance of carbide cutting tool materials in all respects.

Ⅱ. Add rare metals into carbide cutting tools

Adding TaC, NbC and other rare metal carbides to the carbide cutting tool materials can combine the additives with the original hard phase WC and TiC to form a complex solid solution structure, thereby further strengthening the hard phase structure, suppressing the growth of hard phase grains and enhancing the uniformity of the structure, etc. which is of great benefit to improving the overall performance of the carbide cutting tools.

For the ISO standard P, K, M brands of cemented carbides, they are all added with Ta(Nb)C (especially in the M brands).

Ⅲ. Add rare earth elements into carbide cutting tools

Adding a small amount of rare earth elements such as yttrium to the into carbide cutting tool material can effectively improve the toughness and bending strength of the material, and the abrasion resistance is also improved. And it also applies to other cemented carbide products.

This is because rare earth elements can strengthen the hard phase and the binder phase, purify the grain boundaries, and improve the wettability of the carbide solid solution to the binder phase.

Carbide cutting tools with rare earth elements are most suitable for rough machining brands, and can also be used for semi-finishing brands.

In addition, this type of cemented carbide also boasts broad application prospects in tools such as mining tools, top hammers, and wire drawing dies.