The Influence of Chemical Composition on the Mechanical Properties of Sintered Carbides

The production of high-quality and long-lasting products requires the application of materials with specific properties in their production. Therefore, the share of application of materials with high hardness and strength has been increasing recently. This encourages many researchers to focus their development on materials with specific properties. These materials, which are characterized by specific properties, include sintered carbides. Therefore, research was conducted with the aim of obtaining relevant dependencies of the influence of the chemical composition of sintered carbides with a Co binder on their selected mechanical properties. As part of the research, significant dependencies of the influence of the percentage of the Co bonding element in the sintered carbide as well as the grain size on its hardness, flexural strength and fracture toughness were obtained. It was found that with an increasing proportion of the Co bonding element, hardness decreases and at the same time flexural strength and fracture toughness increase. At the same time, with increasing grain size, hardness and flexural strength decrease, while fracture toughness increases. The obtained data also provide suitable data for optimizing the mechanical properties of sintered carbides and drawing complex conclusions in several important contexts.