Thermal stresses in WC-Co hard alloy after sintering

The stressed-strained state of individual elements of th emicrostructure of tungsten hard alloys as a result cooling the material to room temperature after sintering has been estimated by the method of numerical modelling. It is shown that both tensile and compressive stresses may form in individual tungsten carbide grains and certain interlayers of the cobalt phase. The stressed state of the carbide phase is analyzed which makes it possible to predict the possibility of failure for individual grains and also sliding along intergranular boundaries during alloy cooling after sintering. It has been established that the binder phase deforms plastically during the whole cooling process thus creating at room temperature a very inhomogeneous distribution for the intensity of plastic deformation through interlayers.Translated from Problemy Prochnosti, No. 12, pp. 87–93, December, 1990.