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.

This study focuses on the development of coatings designed for storage containers used in the management of radioactive waste. The primary objective is to enhance the shielding performance of these containers against either gamma or neutron radiation. Shielding against these types of radiation is essential to ensure the safety of personnel and the environment. In this study, tungsten and boron cabide coating specimens were manufactured using the HVOF (High-Velocity Oxy Fuel) technuqe. These coatings act as an additional layer of protection for the storage containers, effectively absorbing and attenuating gamma and neutron radiation. The fabricated tungsten and boron carbide coating specimens were evaluated using two different testing methods. The first experiment evaluates the effectiveness of a radiation shielding coating on cold-rolled steel surfaces, achieved by applying a mixture of WC (Tungsten Carbide) powders. WC-based coating specimens, featuring different ratios, were prepared and preliminarily assessed for their radiation shielding capabilities. In the gamma-ray shielding test, Cs-137 was utilized as the radiation source. The coating thickness remained constant at 250 μm. Based on the test results, the attenuation ratio and shielding rate for each coated specimen were calculated. It was observed that the gammaray shielding rate exhibited relatively higher shielding performance as the WC content increased. This observation aligns with our findings from the gamma-ray shielding test and underscores the potential benefits of increasing the tungsten content in the coating. In the second experiment, a neutron shielding material was created by applying a 100 μm-thick layer of B4C (Boron Carbide) onto 316SS. The thermal neutron (AmBe) shielding test results demonstrated an approximate shielding rate of 27%. The thermal neutron shielding rate was confirmed to exceed 99.9% in the 1.5 cm thick SiC+B4C bulk plate. This indicates a significant reduction in required volume. This study establishes that these coatings enhance the gamma-ray and neutron shielding effectiveness of storage containers designed for managing radioactive waste. In the future, we plan to conduct a comparative evaluation of the radiation shielding properties to optimize the coating conditions and ensure optimal shielding effectiveness.

Tungsten carbide is widely used in carbide tools. However, its production process generates a significant number of end-of-life products and by-products. Therefore, it is necessary to develop efficient recycling methods and investigate the remanufacturing of tungsten carbide using recycled materials. Herein, we have recovered 99.9% of the tungsten in cemented carbide hard scrap as tungsten oxide via an alkali leaching process. Subsequently, using the recovered tungsten oxide as a starting material, tungsten carbide has been produced by employing a self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS) method. SHS is advantageous as it reduces the reaction time and is energy-efficient. Tungsten carbide with a carbon content of 6.18 wt % and a particle size of 116 nm has been successfully synthesized by optimizing the SHS process parameters, pulverization, and mixing. In this study, a series of processes for the highefficiency recycling and quality improvement of tungsten-based materials have been developed.

This study aims to investigate the effect of an aluminum chromium nitride (AlCrN) coating on tool wear and hole quality in the conventional drilling process of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) composites, titanium alloy (Ti), and CFRP–Ti stack workpieces popular in the aerospace industry. The advanced arc plasma acceleration (APA) method of physical vapor deposition (PVD) was used for all AlCrN coatings. The drilling experiments were conducted with uncoated drills as well as AlCrN-coated drills. When drilling CFRP only, the AlCrN coating was removed at the drill cutting edges and the margin area, which suggests the carbon fibers abraded the coatings. When drilling Ti only, the AlCrN-coated drill mitigated the Ti adhesion formation, which resulted in less tool wear. In addition, hole quality for both CFRP and Ti was improved when the coating was used versus the uncoated tool. The machinability of CFRP–Ti stacks in the drilling process was improved by utilizing the advanced AlCrN coating on the WC tool in terms of drilling forces and hole quality parameters such as average hole size, average hole roundness, hole surface roughness, and Ti exit burr height.

Magnetic abrasive finishing (MAF) process is a surface improvement method, which the magnetic field of permanent magnet or electromagnet is used to control the abrasive particles during the finishing process. The magnetic abrasive tools are filled between the N-pole and S-pole of Nd-Fe-B type permanent magnets. Tungsten carbide bar (WC) is a high hardness material and its compressive strength is much higher than the other materials. Therefore, due to its superior mechanical properties, it has been widely used in cutting or machining process. Because the smooth surface of tungsten carbide is required in cutting tools, thus the magnetic abrasive finishing process was applied for achieving its surface accuracy and dimensional accuracy. The results showed that the surface roughness of tungsten carbide bar was improved from Ra: 0.23㎛ to Ra: 0.02㎛ in 120 sec by magnetic abrasive finishing process.

Tungsten carbide (WC) hard materials are used in various industries and possess a superior hardness compared to other hard materials. They have particularly high melting points, high strength, and abrasion resistance. Accordingly, tungsten carbide hard materials are used for wear-resistant tools, cutting tools, machining tools, and other tooling materials. In this study, the WC-5wt.%Co, Fe, Ni hard materials are densified using the horizontal ball milled WC-Co, WC-Fe, and WC-Ni powders by a spark plasma sintering process. The WC-5Co, WC-5Fe, and WC-5Ni hard materials are almost completely densified with a relative density of up to 99.6% after simultaneous application of a pressure of 60 MPa and an electric current for about 15 min without any significant change in the grain size. The average grain size of WC-5Co, WC-5Fe, and WC-5Ni that was produced through SPS was about 0.421, 0.779, and 0.429 μm, respectively. The hardness and fracture toughness of the dense WC-5Co, WC-5Fe, WC-5Ni hard materials were also investigated.

Cobalt coated tungsten carbide-cobalt composite powder has been prepared through wet chemical reductionmethod. The cobalt sulfate solution was converted to the cobalt chloride then the cobalt hydroxide. The tungsten carbidepowders were added in to the cobalt hydroxide, the cobalt hydroxide was reduced and coated over tungsten carbidepowder using hypo-phosphorous acid. Both the cobalt and the tungsten carbide phase peaks were evident in the tungstencarbide-cobalt composite powder by X-ray diffraction. The average particle size measured via scanning electron micro-scope, particle size analysis was around 380 nm and the thickness of coated cobalt was determined to be 30~40 nm bytransmission electron microscopy.

Cemented tungsten carbide has been used in cutting tools and die materials, and is an important industrial material. When the particle size is reduced to ultrafine, the hardness and other mechanical properties are improved remarkably. Ultrafine cemented carbide with high toughness and hardness is now widely used. The objective of this study is synthesis of nanostructured WC-Co powders by liquid phase method of tungstate. The precursor powders were obtained by freezen-drying of aqueous solution of soluble salts, such as ammonium metatungstate, cobalt nitrate. the final compositions were WC-10Co. In the case of liquid phase method, it can be observed synthesis of WC-10Co. The properties of powder produced at various temperature, were estimated from the SEM, BET and C/S analyser.

In this paper, experimental studies of the regrinding of tungsten carbide (WC-Co) tools for high-speed machining were conducted. Regrinding and a subsequent evaluation test were carried out for a flat endmill tool with diameters of 10 mm and 3 mm using a CNC five-axis tool grinder and a CNC three-axis machining center. Tool wear on the two types of endmill tools increased as the cutting length increased, and the tool wear was not influenced by the regrinding state. In case of the micro endmill with a tool diameter of 3 mm, the effective regrinding time was determined for a flank wear threshold of 0.3 mm considering the tool life according to cutting length. The tool lives of the 10 mm and 3 mm endmill tools were increased by 80% and 72%, respectively. This conclusion proves the Feasibility of the recycling of tungsten carbide materials in the high-speed machining of high-hardened materials for industrial applications.

To satisfy the demand of higher cutting performance, mechanical properties with tungsten carbide (WC-Co) tool materials were investigated. Hardness and transverse rupture strength with WC grain size, Co content and density were measured. Compared to H, K, and S manufacture maker as tungsten carbide (WC-Co) tool materials were used for high-speed machining of end-milling operation. The three tungsten carbide (WC-Co) tool materials were evaluated by cutting of STD 11 cold-worked die steel (HRC25) under high-speed cutting condition. Also, tool life was obtained from measuring flank wear by CCD wear measuring system. Tool dynamometer was used to measure cutting force. The cutting force and tool wear are discussed along with tool material characteristics. Consequently, the end-mill of K, H manufacture maker showed higher wear-resistance due to its higher hardness, while the S maker endmill tool showed better performance for high metal removal.

This paper introduces a special spheroidizing technology at ultra-high temperature. The conventional cast tungsten carbide (YZ) is melted at high temperature, rapidly cooled and spheroidized on a new ultra-high temperature spheroidizing equipment to prepare various grades WSC powders.

In this paper, we show some experimental results of binder-free WC sintered by Pulsed Electric Current Sintering (PECS) also known as Field Assisted Sintering Technology (FAST). These binder-free WC have extremely hardness and stiffness. However, these mechanical properties are dependent on the sintering condition, e.g., maximum temperature, applied pressure, etc. We show some relationship between mechanical properties and sintering condition to improve to sinter the binder-free WC.

Nano-structured tungsten carbide compacts with cobalt matrices (WC-Co) offer new opportunities for achieving superior hardness and toughness combinations. A unified modeling and simulation tool has been developed to produce maps of sintering pathways from nanocrystalline WC powder to sintered nano-structured WC-Co compacts. This tool includes (1) die compaction, (2) grain growth, (3) densification, (4) sensitivity analysis, and (5) optimization. All material parameters were obtained by curve fitting based on results with two WC-Co powders. Critical processing parameters are determined based on sensitivity analysis and are optimized to minimize grain size with high density.

Austenitic stainless steel has been used as a corrosion resistance material. However, austenitic stainless steel has poor wear resistance property due to its low hardness. In this investigation, we apply powder composite process to obtain hard layer of Stainless steel. The composite material was fabricated from planetary ball milled SUS316L stainless steel powder and WC powder and then sintered by Pulsed Current Sintering (PCS) method. We also added TiC powder as a hard particle in WC layer. Evaluations of wear properties were performed by pin-on-disk wear testing machine, and a remarkable improvement in wear resistance property was obtained.

In order to develop the nano-sized WC powder that improved the hardness of hardmetals, carbothermal reduction of WO3 by C was examined by using the thermogravimetric analysis. At the direct carburization reaction path of , the nano-sized grain was generated at the reaction stage to and W. For trial production, the intermediate products which consists of metal and carbide phases obtained by the first heating has been carburized to the final WC powder. We succeeded in the development of the WC powder of about 70nm. In addition, the nano-sized WC powder in which the vanadium of the most effective grain growth inhibitor was uniformly dispersed was developed.

Nano-sized WC powders were synthesized by vapor phase reaction using the precusor of tungsten ethoxide under helium and hydrogen atmosphere. The phases of the powder were varied with reaction Bone and gas flow rate. The powder size was about 30nm in diameter, and the tungsten carbide powder was coated by carbon layer. The synthesis of nano-sized WC powders was promoted as the hydrogen gas flow rate became higher. Inversely, tungsten oxide was formed by increasing the flow rate of helium gas. The synthesized powders were analyzed by XRD, FE-SEM, carbon analyzer etc.