Interface characteristics in cemented carbides with alternative binders

Abstract

Cemented tungsten carbides with Co, Ni or Fe binders were studied by transmission electron microscopy. Particular attention was paid to phase and grain boundaries. A striking feature is the high frequency of coherent carbide/binder interfaces with Fe. The Fe rich binder adopts an epitaxy orientation relationship with prismatic facets of WC, with a parametric misfit of about 1.5%. A special orientation relationship with basal facets of WC grains is sometimes observed with Ni binder, as already noticed for Co. It is associated with a parametric misfit of about 15%. Binder segregation in WC grain boundaries was studied taking into account the effect of carbon content in the alloys. Whatever the binder, no influence of the carbon content could be pointed out. The analyses performed in random grain boundaries in WC-Co alloys agree with the literature value of 0.5 monolayer of segregated Co while slightly larger values are obtained for Ni and Fe binder. ∑ = 2 special grain boundaries were studied in WC-Co and WC-Ni alloys and no segregation was detected. The higher grain boundary segregation as well as the occurrence of coherent interfaces should influence the mechanical properties of WC-Fe alloys.