Tungsten carbide (WC) based composites are usually produced with cobalt, but this binder has the inconvenience of shortage, unstable price and potential carcinogenicity. The objective of this study was to develop WC composite with intermetallic Fe3Al matrix. Powders of WC, iron and aluminum, with composition WC-10 wt% Fe3Al, and 0.5 wt% zinc stearate were milled in a vibration mill for 6 h and sintered in a SPS (spark plasma sintering) furnace at 1150 °C for 8 min under pressure of 30 MPa. Measured density and microstructure analysis showed that the composite had significant densification during the (low-temperature, short time) sintering, and X-ray diffraction analysis showed the formation of intermetallic Fe3Al. Analysis by Vickers indentation resulted in hardness of 11.2 GPa and fracture toughness of 24.6 MPa.m1/2, showing the feasibility of producing dense WC-Fe3Al composite with high mechanical properties using the SPS technique.
Dental prostheses made of ceramic composites infiltrated with glasses have been used due to their biocompatibility and possibility to mimic the natural teeth. In this study, the devitrification behavior of 20SiO2-25B2O3-25Al2O3-15La2O3-15TiO2 glass during the infiltration process in a porous alumina preform was investigated. Glass frits were prepared by melting the raw materials at 1500 °C for 60 min. The glass was infiltrated into the alumina preform at 1,150 or 1,200 °C for 60 min. The specimens were characterized by X-ray diffraction analysis and scanning electron microscopy. After the infiltration, it was possible to note that the devitrification process occurred in the remaining glass (excess glass that did not infiltrate in the preform), forming mostly aluminum borate and mullite crystalline phases. However, within the infiltrated composite no devitrification was noticed in the infiltrated glass. Possible explanations for this behavior are discussed.
Cobalt is widely used to produce WC-Co hard metals, but this binder has problems of shortage and unstable price. In this work, cobalt was replaced by an iron aluminide intermetallic binder. WC-10%(Fe3Al-3%B) composite was prepared by vibration milling of WC, Fe, Fe-B, and Al powders and sintered by spark plasma sintering (SPS) at 1150 °C for 8 min under 30 MPa. The milling time was 0.17, 12, 25 and 50 h. The SPS was efficient to consolidate the composite resulting in relative density of ~98% or higher. With increasing milling time, Vickers hardness (HV30) of composite increased from 12 to 14 GPa due to the enhanced homogeneity of microstructure, while the fracture toughness, KIc, determined by an indention fracture method using Shetty equation, remained constant at around 9.1 MPa.m1/2.
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