Can the DryLyte® Technology Polish 3D Printed Ceramic/Metal Samples and in Particular WC-Co?

Abstract

DryLyte® Technology is an effective surface finish technique, which follows the same traditional electrolytic cell principle, but uses an electrolytic solid non-conductive medium rather than a liquid one. For the last 10 years, this technology has been attracting a lot of attention compared to conventional ones due to the selective smoothing of the surface technique, interacting only with the roughness peaks and not with the valleys, etc. In this book’s chapter, for 3D-printed cemented carbides (WC-Co) polished with DryLyte® Technology, it is shown the correlation between the microstructure and the surface integrity, in terms of mechanical properties, at submicrometric length scale. Also, a particular case study is presented of 3D-printed WC-Co as a function of the testing temperature, ranging from room temperature up to service-like working conditions. Finally, the mechanical properties are correlated as function of the chemical nature and/or crystallographic phase.