Adhesive wear performance of hardmetals and cermets

This work focuses on the performance of some carbide composites, in particular alloys designed for metalforming in wear conditions with prevalence of adhesion. Wear tests were performed by a special metal cutting method which consisted of turning of mild steel at low speed. The results were compared with those obtained in the sliding wear tests and related to the mechanical properties and microstructure studied by SEM and XRD. It was shown that the surface failure starts preferably in the binder by a combined process (extraction, microcutting) and is preceded by the plastic strain taking place in both phases—in the ductile binder and in the brittle carbide. WC–Co composites and cermets on the basis of TiC, bonded with Fe-alloys demonstrated their noticeable superiority over TiC-base composites bonded with Ni-alloys.