Fabrication of ultrafine grain WC alloys by spark plasma sintering

Ultrafine grain WC a lloys were prepared by high energy ball milling and subsequent spark plasma sintering from elemental mixed powders of nominal composition of WC-6Co-1.5Al(%, mass fraction). The influences of spark plasma sintering parameters on the density, hardness, bend strength and microstructure of sintered WC alloys were also investigated. The results show that there existed a proper time combination of pulse current and constant current employed for sintering. When the peak, base, frequency and occupational ratio of pulse current, constant current, total sintering time and sintering pressure were chosen as 3000 A, 360 A, 50 Hz, 50%, 1500 A, 6 min and 30 MPa, respectively, the optimal sintering was a combination application of 1min pulse-current and subsequent 5 min constant-current. The density, hardness and bend strength of the as sintered alloys could get up to 14. 224 g/cm3 , HRA94 and 1660 MPa, respectively, and the average grain size of WC was only about 500 nm.