Doping of WC-Co Hard metal with Vanadium Carbide

The urgent problem of the JSC Almalyk MMC is the need to increase the wear resistance of products made from hard alloys, which is caused by low wear resistance of tools made from them. The analysis of the causes revealed the probable causes of this lag: - the structure of the alloy or its components; - undesirable impurities in the alloy or components; - possible alloying of imported analogues. It is shown that when doping a hard alloy with vanadium, an increased wear resistance of the alloy is achieved. From the series of diffractograms and images on an electron microscope, it follows that the addition of vanadium carbide - 1% by mass, reduces and stabilizes the grain size of the alloy: nanostructuring is observed. The wear resistance and hardness of samples of WC-Co and WC-VC-Co systems were measured. Images of electron microscopy of their surfaces are made, X-ray diffraction data of these samples are studied.

Keywords: Hardmetals, Vanadium Carbide, Tungsten Carbide, Cobalt, Wear Resistance, Hardness.