Iron Powder-based Metal Matrix for Diamond Cutting Tools: A Review

About the relationship of the processing conditions, mechanical properties, and microstructure of a co-precipitated Fe/Cu prealloyed powder

“…Most of DIT used for cutting natural stones are based on metallic matrix composites, in which randomly distributed diamond particles are embedded in a metallic binder phase. The PM research activity over the last 20 years in the field of the DIT for stone and civil engineering cutting applications has been mainly focused on the development of prealloyed powders [ [4] , [5] , [6] ] and the introduction of free-sintering [ [7] , [8] , [9] , [10] , [11] ] together with other sintering techniques which allow high densification with short processing times [ 12 , 13 ]. The purpose of both activities has been taken for a reduction in the cobalt content of DIT bonds and the significant reduction in production cost that is potentially obtained by working with a pressureless sintering furnace instead of using standard pressure assisted sintering methods.…”

“…These activities have led to an increase in DIT competitiveness in different sectors in the last ten years. More recent developments have focused on the use of water atomized powders [ 6 , 20 ] and premix bonds [ 21 ] as raw material for the bond, encapsulated diamonds to eliminate diamond clustering and their premature loss, and equally-spaced and arrayed diamonds in a regular pattern in order to improve diamond tool performance [ 22 ].…”

Mechanical Alloying of Copper- or Iron-Based Metallic Binders for Diamond Tools

“…Low-cost powders of copper-tin or iron materials are attractive as bases for new binders due to the optimal combination of performance properties, manufacturability and availability of metals [7,8]. Carbonyl iron-based binders can already replace cobalt ones [8].…”

Performance of diamond circular saws with innovative Fe-based binders

“…Along with the advancement in technologies used for the synthesis of superhard materials, there are two other trends: the composition of these materials is also improved and the novel methods for manufacturing metallic binders, which are in charge of diamond retention in the working layer and of the high performance maintenance, are being developed [6][7][8][9]. The standard use of single-component metallic [10,11] and multi-component binders produced by chemical co-deposition from metal hydroxides and further reduction [12] has given way to the modern technique of mechanical alloying (MA) of powder blends [13,14]. Due to MA, the resulting materials have a homogeneous fine-grained structure that favorably influences the performance of the tools.…”