Cemented carbides, also known asWidia, are hardmetals produced by sintering process and widely used in mechanical machining.\nThey show high cutting capacity and good wear resistance; consequently, they result to be excellent materials for manufacturing\ncutting tools and sandblast nozzles. In this work, the wear resistance ofWC-Co carbides containing Eta-phase, a secondary phase\npresent in the hard metals when a carbon content deficiency occurs, is analyzed. Different mixtures of carbide are prepared and\nsintered, with differentweight percentages of carbon, in order to formEta-phase and then analyze howthe carbon content influences\nthe wear resistance of the material. This characterization is carried out by abrasive wear tests. The test parameters are chosen\nconsidering the working conditions of sandblast nozzles. Additional information is gathered through microscopic observations\nand the evaluation of hardness and microhardness of the different mixtures. The analyses highlight that there is a limit of carbon\ncontent below which bad sintering occurs. Considering the mixtures without these sintering problems, they show a wear resistance\ndepending on the size and distribution of the Eta-phase; moreover, the one with high carbon content deficiency shows the best\nperformance.
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