Cemented carbide for cutting tools, which is composed of carbide as a hard phase and metallic component as a metallic phase, mainly uses cobalt as the metallic phase due to the excellent mechanical properties of cobalt. However, as the demand for machining difficult-to-machine materials such as titanium and carbon fiber-reinforced plastics has recently increased, the development of high-hardness cemented carbide is necessary and the replacement of cobalt metal with a high-hardness alloy is required. In this study, we would like to introduce high-hardness cemented carbide fabricated using nickel-tungsten alloy as the metallic phase. First, nickel-tungsten alloy powder of the composition for formation of intermetallic compound confirmed through thermodynamic calculations was synthesized, and cemented carbide was prepared through the sintering process of tungsten carbide and the synthesized alloy powder. Through evaluating the mechanical properties of high-hardness cemented carbide with the nickel-tungsten alloy binder, the possibility of producing high-hardness cemented carbide by using the alloys with high-hardness was confirmed.

Liquid phase sintering of 90W-6Ni-4Mn alloy has been investigated as functions of sintering atmosphere, heating rate, and reduction temperature. The present work accounts for the thermodynamic oxidatiodreduction reactions of constituent powders of W, Ni and Mn. By discounting these reactions, the previous investigations would obtain only the alloy with large pores and the lowered relative sintered density, by the liquid phase sintering under a dry hydrogen atmosphere. the sintering cycle consisted of a rapid heating to reduction temperatures under high purity nitrogen atmosphere, and holding for 4 hours and sintering at for 1 hour under a dry hydrogen gas. The relative density of the sintered alloy increased with increasing heating rate. As the reduction temperature increased, the relative density increased to the lm theotical density at the duction temture above . The mimsturcatre of sintered alloys has been analysed by a scanning election microscope. The sintered density was compared with those obtained from the other investigators. It was found that the reduction results in the lowered densification of 90W-6Ni-4Mn alloy. This is caused by the fact that reducing reactions of W and Ni oxides contained in W an Ni powders concomitantly leads to oxidizing reaction of Mn powder the oxidized Mn is hardly reduced at sintering temperature and thereby remains large pores in the alloy. It is concluded that the W-Ni-Mn alloy with full density can be obtained by the precise control of atmosphere, heating rate, and sintering temperature.