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- Niobium carbide (14)
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- Sintering (7)
- Mechanical properties (6)
- Wear (6)
- Hardness (5)
- Microstructure (5)
- Friction (4)
- NbC (4)
- Grain growth (3)
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The sales of niobium carbide (NbC) have grown in the last years, but NbC is still a hidden carbide and mainly used as grain growth inhibitor in hard metals. In the present work it was shown that the progress in the key properties, like HV30, KIC and strength, followed by machining and tribological results of the respective NbC grades.
The current study reports on the influence of the Addition of 5–15 vol% VC or/and Mo2C carbide on the microstructure and mechanical properties of nickel bonded NbC cermets, which are compared to cobalt bonded NbC cermets. The NbC, Ni and secondary carbides powder mixtures were liquid phase sintered for 1 h at 1420 °C in vacuum. The fully densified cermets are composed of a cubic NbC grains matrix and an evenly distributed fcc Ni binder. NbC grain growth was significantly inhibited and a homogeneous NbC grain size distribution was obtained in the cermets with VC/Mo2C additions. The mechanical properties of the NbC-Ni matrix cermets are strongly dependent on the carbide and Ni binder content and are directly compared to their NbC-Co equivalents.
The liquid phase sintered NbC-12 vol% Ni cermet had a modest Vickers hardness (HV30) of 1077 ± 22 kg/mm2 and an indentation toughness of 9.1 ± 0.5 MPa·m1/2. With the addition of 10–15 vol% VC, the hardness increased to 1359 ± 15 kg/mm2, whereas the toughness increased to 11.3 ± 0.1 MPa·m1/2. Addition of 5 and 10 vol% Mo2C into a NbC-12 vol% Ni mixtures generated the same values in HV30 and KIC when compared to VC additions. A maximum flexural strength of 1899 ± 77 MPa was obtained in the cermet with 20 vol% Ni binder and 4 vol% VC+4 vol% Mo2C addition, exhibiting a high fracture toughness of 15.0 ± 0.5 MPa·m1/2, but associated with a loss in hardness due to the high Ni content. The dry sliding wear behaviour was established at room temperature and 400 °C from 0.1 to 10 m/s.
Niobium is today largely available. The initial NbC grade was substoichiometric, SPS sintered and cobalt bonded (NbC0.88-12Co SPS). The NiMo-bonded stoichiometric NbC1.0 grades enable the subtituion of cobalt by nickel, SPS by conventional sintering and NbC0.88 by NbC1.0 in view of functional properties. Nickel bonded NbC grades have improved toughnesses versus cobalt bonded NbC grades, but lose hardness. NiMo and NiMo2C bonded NbC1.0 grades compensated the loss in hardness while keeping the toughness.
The current study reports on the effect of the sintering temperature and secondary carbide (VC, Mo2C and TiC) additions on the microstructure and concommitant Vickers hardness (HV30) and fracture toughness of Ni-bonded NbC cermets. All cermets were prepared by pressureless sintering in vacuum. Detailed microstructural investigation was performed by electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. Sintering results indicated that both the sintering temperature and secondary carbide additions had a significant effect on the properties of NbC-Ni cermets. Nickel pools and residual pores were observed in the cermets sintered at temperatures ≤ 1340 °C. Increasing of the sintering temperature up to 1420 or 1480 °C resulted in fully densified NbC-Ni based cermets composed of homogeneous contrast cubic NbC grains for the single carbide (VC or Mo2C) modyfied system, whereas core-rim structured NbC grains were observed with the additon of TiC + VC or TiC+Mo2C. The secondary carbide doped cermets with 5–10 vol.% VC/Mo2C and 10 vol.% TiC showed a significantly improved hardness and fracture toughness, as compared to the plain NbC-Ni cermets.