Compaction Characteristics of Tungsten Carbide Based Self-Lubricant Cutting Tool Material

Abstract

In this study, an attempt has been made to develop solid lubricant cutting tool material with the aid of powder metallurgy technique. Chosen tungsten carbide, cobalt and calcium fluoride were milled in the planetary ball milling, followed by uniaxial compaction and sintering in a tube furnace. Materials were milled at various hours of milling and compaction pressure to understand the effect of relative density and hardness of sintered specimens. It is found that the relative density of compacted and sintered specimens found to increase with the compaction pressure but decreased with milling time after particular time. From the investigation, 40 hr of milling and 400 MPa compaction pressure found to be suitable for the development of proposed material. In this work, sample density was measured by the Archimedes’ method and hardness was measured by Rockwell hardness tester.