Edge effect on abrasive wear mechanisms and wear resistance in WC-6wt.% Co hardmetals

Wear of hardmetals is a complicated topic because the wear resistance and the wear mechanisms are influenced by microstructural factors. Although edge wear resistance has a vital importance, most of the researches made in laboratories are related to flat wear resistance using coarse abrasive paper. This situation produces problems with the prediction of abrasive wear behaviour and with the estimation of the lifetime of cutting edges of different kinds of tooling. Several studies have been done in order to clarify edge wear behaviour. It has been published correlations of the edge toughness to the load and to the bulk fracture toughness. In those publications coarse abrasive or Vickers indenter were used. In the present research, edge shaped specimens of WC-6wt%Co grades were investigated. In order to compare the obtained results for flat sliding and edge wear behaviour two test arrangements, pin on flat disc and edge on flat disc were employed. The specimens were tested using 120, 320, 800 and 2400 mesh SiC abrasive paper and the worn surfaces were investigated using SEM instrument to evaluate wear mechanisms. The edge wear was observed was discussed in relation to wear mechanisms investigated and correlated to the flat wear behaviour. The obtained results showed limited applicability of the results obtained with the pin on the flat disc test arrangement for prediction of the edge wear resistance, especially in the case when size of the abrasive particles is close to the WC grain size. However, both edge and flat wear results were similar in; 1) large WC grain sized hard metals wore more than fine grain sized against coarse abrasive paper whereas the reverse occurred against fine abrasives, and 2) wear mechanisms were mainly ploughing (or grooving) for fine grain sized hardmetals in all cases, whereas wear mechanisms changed from ploughing to binder removal and carbide pull-out going from coarse to fine abrasive paper