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2020
Journal Article
Titel
Laser-Based Additive Manufacturing of WC-Co with High-Temperature Powder Bed Preheating
Abstract
The field of additive manufacturing (AM), and especially laser powder‐bed fusion (LPBF), is constantly growing. Process windows for a large variety of materials are already developed. Nevertheless, some materials are still difficult to manufacture with LPBF. One of these materials is the tungsten carbide/cobalt‐based hard metal (WC-Co), which is conventionally produced by powder metallurgy including liquid‐phase sintering. Most approaches to manufacture WC-Co with LPBF show a high porosity, undesirable phases in the microstructure, and inhomogeneous carbide distribution. However, the production of WC-Co cutting tools by LPBF will offer some benefits such as production of geometrically optimized inner cooling channels or optimized geometry of the cutting edges. Herein, WC with 17 wt% Co is processed by LPBF with a powder‐bed heating of 900 °C. Afterwards microstructure, density, and hardness are determined. In addition, X‐ray diffraction (XRD) analysis is performed to determine the phase composition. To investigate the edge‐holding properties of LPBF‐manufactured WC-Co cutting tools, stock removal tests are conducted on three different workpiece materials.