• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.56-61
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• 2015

In this study, we investigated the effectiveness of an ultrasonic nanocrystal surface modification (UNSM) technique on the mechanical and wear properties of tungsten carbide (WC). The UNSM technique is a newly developed surface modification technique that increases the mechanical properties of materials by severe plastic deformation. The objective of this study was to improve the wear resistance of press die made of WC by applying the UNSM technique. We observed the microstructures of the untreated and UNSM-treated specimens using a scanning electron microscope (SEM), and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) was used to investigate the chemical composition. The SEM observations showed the pore size and the number of pores decreased after the UNSM treatment. We assessed the wear behavior of both the untreated and UNSM-treated specimens using a scratch test. The test results showed that the wear resistance of the UNSM-treated specimens increased by about 46% compared with the untreated specimens. This may be attributed to increased hardness, reduced surface roughness, induced compressive residual stress, and refined grain size following the application of the UNSM technique. In addition, we found that the UNSM treatment increased the carbon concentration to 63% from 33%. We expect that implementing the findings of this study will lead to an increase in the life of press dies.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.429-434
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• 2015

This study investigates the macroscopic wear behaviors of C/C and C/C-SiC composites coated with hafnium carbide (HfC). To improve the wear resistance of C/C composites, low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) was used to obtain HfC coating. The CVD coatings were deposited at various deposition temperatures of 1300, 1400, and $1500^{\circ}C$. The effect of the substrate material (the C/C substrate, the C/C-CVR substrate, or the C/C-SiC substrate deposited by LSI) was also studied to improve the wear resistance. The experiment used the ball-on-disk method, with a tungsten carbide (WC) ball utilized as an indenter to evaluate the wear behavior. The HfC coatings were found to effectively improve the wear resistance of C/C and C/C-SiC composites, compared with the case of a non-coated C/C composite. The former showed lower friction coefficients and almost no wear loss during the wear test because of the presence of hard coatings. The wear scar width was relatively narrower for the C/C and C/C-SiC composites with hafnium coatings. Wear behavior was found to critically depend on the deposition temperature and the material. Thus, the HfC-coated C/C-SiC composites fabricated at deposition temperatures of $1500^{\circ}C$ showed the best wear resistance, a lower friction coefficient, and almost no loss during the wear test.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.63-70
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• 2000

Thermal spray coating process has proven to be effective at producing hard, dense, wear resistance coatings on the relatively mild substrates. Among several spraying techniques, HVOF (High Velocity Oxygen Fuel) and plasma coating processes, which are preferentially used for the wear resistance application such as capstans, have been applied in this study. The effects of pre-treatment, it-process and post-treatment parameters on the wear and mechanical properties of WC+12%Co, Cr3C2 and Al2O3 powder coatings have been investigated and correlated with the microstructures. The results indicated that the carbide coating was more preferable to the oxide coatings and the post-treatments consisting of vacuum annealing and sealing on carbide coatings led to significant improvements in wear resistance, adhesive strength and coating phase stabilization over the other processing techniques in this application.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.661-669
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• 2002

Rapid tooling technique enables us to make dies and molds that produce prototype parts with the correct material at a substantially reduced cost and time. In this study, experiments on selective laser sintering of tungsten carbide-cobalt mixture were carried out to find optimal sintering conditions that will be applied to rapid metal tooling. The experiments were carried out within an air, an argon and a nitrogen atmosphere. Coupons of single layer were sintered at various laser powers, scanning speeds and scan spacings. Very severe oxidation took place within an air atmosphere. The oxidation is reduced significantly within an argon and a nitrogen atmosphere. The thickness of the sintered coupons is increased as the energy density, the laser energy Per unit scanned area, is increased. Several multi-layer sintering experiments were also carried out.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.106-113
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• 2019

We investigated the application of tetrahedral amorphous carbon (ta-C) coatings to fabricate a glass lens manufactured using a glass molding process (GMP). In this work, ta-C coatings with different thickness (50, 100, 150 and 200 nm) were deposited on a tungsten carbide (WC-Co) mold using the X-bend filter of a filtered cathode vacuum arc. The effects of thickness on mechanical and tribological properties of the coating were studied. These ta-C coatings were characterized by atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, nano-indentation measurements, Raman spectrometry, Rockwell-C tests, scratch tests and ball on disc tribometer tests. The nano-indentation measurements showed that hardness increased with an increase in coating thickness. In addition, the G-peak position in the Raman spectra analysis was right shifted from 1520 to $1586cm^{-1}$, indicating that the $sp^3$ content increased with increasing thickness of ta-C coatings. The scratch test showed that, compared to other coatings, the 100-nm-thick ta-C coating displayed excellent adhesion strength without delamination. The friction test was carried out in a nitrogen environment using a ball-on-disk tribometer. The 100-nm-thick ta-C coating showed a low friction coefficient of 0.078. When this coating was applied to a GMP, the life time, i.e., shot counts, dramatically increased up to 2,500 counts, in comparison with Ir-Re coating.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.13 no.12
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• pp.850-854
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• 2003

The abrasion wear behavior on the hardfacing weld was investigated by performing abrasion wear, hardness, and microstructural tests. The gas metal arc(GMA) weld was produced by using the cored wire which was filled with the hard metal, i.e., the recycled tungsten carbide (WC) reinforced metal matrix composite. For 30% addition of the hard metal, the abrasion wear resistance was significantly improved comparing with that for 20% addition of the hard metal. Above 30% addition of the hard metal, however, there was no significant improvement of the wear resistance. The improvement of the wear resistance was due to the increased amount of eutectic carbides(W$_{6}$C) which was formed during GMA welding. For the weld in which the hard metal was added to 30-40%, an optimum level of abrasion wear resistance was performed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Powder Metallurgy Institute Conference
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• 2006.09a
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• pp.109-110
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• 2006

We have studied the effect of C/Ti atomic ratio of TiCx (x=0.5, 0.75 and 1.0) raw powder on the properties of the Ti-Mo-WTiC sintered hard alloy. The decrease of C/Ti atomic ratio accelerated the densification in the sintering process. The hardness was remarkably improved up to 1350HV with decreasing the C/Ti atomic ratio because of increase of TiCx phase volume content and its fine dispersion. From the results of electro-chemical tests in acid and 3% NaCl solutions, it was obvious that every alloy had excellent corrosion resistance, which meant about 200 times better than that of WC-Co cemented carbide.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.558-563
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• 2008

TiAlN films were deposited on WC-5Co substrates with different buffer layers by D.C. magnetron sputtering. The films were evaluated by microstructural observations and measuring of preferred orientation, hardness value, and adhesion force. As a process variable, various buffer layers were used such as TiAlN single layer, TiAlN/TiAl, TiAlN/TiN and TiAlN/CrN. TiAlN coating layer showed columnar structures which grew up at a right angle to the substrates. The thickness of the TiAlN coating layer was about $1.8{\mu}m$, which was formed for 200 minutes at $300^{\circ}$. XRD analysis showed that the preferred orientation of TiAlN layer with TiN buffer layer was (111) and (200), and the specimens of TiAlN/TiAl, TiAlN/CrN, TiAlN single layer have preferred orientation of (111), respectively. TiAlN single layer and TiAlN/TiAl showed good adhesion properties, showing an over 80N adhesion force, while TiAlN/TiN film showed approximately 13N and the TiAlN/CrN was the worst case, in which the layer was destroyed because of high internal residual stress. The value of micro vickers hardness of the TiAlN single layer, TiAlN/TiAl and TiAlN/TiN layers were 2711, 2548 and 2461 Hv, respectively.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.342-351
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• 2021

Because of its unique properties, tungsten is a strategic and rare metal used in various industrial applications. However, the world's annual production of tungsten is only 84000 t. Ammonium paratungstate (APT), which is used as the main intermediate in industrial tungsten production, is usually obtained from tungsten concentrates of wolframite and scheelite by hydrometallurgical treatment. Intermediates such as tungsten trioxide, tungsten blue oxide, tungstic acid, and ammonium metatungstate can be derived from APT by thermal decomposition or chemical attack. Tungsten metal powder is produced through the hydrogen reduction of high-purity tungsten oxides, and tungsten carbide powder is produced by the reaction of tungsten powder and carbon black powder at 1300-1700℃ in a hydrogen atmosphere. Tungsten scrap can be divided into hard and soft scrap based on shape (bulk or powder). It can also be divided into new scrap generated during the production of tungsten-bearing goods and old scrap collected at the end of life. Recycling technologies for tungsten can be divided into four main groups: direct, chemical, and semi-direct recycling, and melting metallurgy. In this review, the current status of tungsten smelting and recycling technologies is discussed.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.59-63
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• 2015

Airless spray which is widely used for painting to ship blocks and hull sides is the coating method for attaching atomized paint material to the substrate using spray tip nozzle with compressed air. When the paint material which has high solid contents such as epoxy primer paint is atomized by passing through spray tip nozzle with high pressure, the nozzle composed of tungsten carbide(WC) undergoes the erosive wear, leading to widening of nozzle hole. The deformation of nozzle hole induces improper spray pattern and coating failures such as finger pattern and sagging because the conditions of spray pump pressure and paint flow rate for developing full spray pattern are changed. In this study, an appropriate replacement cycle of spray tip was predicted by measuring the erosive wear tendency as increasing the spraying time of epoxy primer paint.