Influence of different post treatments on microstructure and properties of WC-Co cemented carbides

Effects of different post treatments on microstructure and properties of WC-11 wt.% Co cemented carbides were investigated in this paper. The different post treatments that are carried out to the cemented carbides are (a) heating and quenching in oil bath, (b) controlled cryogenic treatment. Various mechanical and microstructural characterization of these alloys including density, coercive force, hardness, transverse rupture strength, phase composition, W solubility of the cobalt phase, martensitic phase transformation of the cobalt phase and WC grain shape were analyzed before and after post treatments. The experimental results show that post treatments have a significant influence on WC-Co cemented carbides and the details of the experimental study are presented in this paper. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.