TiC-based cermet alloy
is a high-quality impact-resistant and wear-resistant material with TiC as the hard phase and iron steel as the bonding phase. It has been more and more widely used in cement, mining, metallurgy, construction, machining and boiler manufacturing . According to estimates, the annual output of TiC-based high-manganese steel-bonded cemented carbide inserts required for crushing hammers in China’s cement industry is nearly 1,000 t.
The properties of the matrix high manganese steel in the TiC-based alloy largely determine the toughness and impact resistance of the alloy, and the standard process to improve the performance of ordinary cast high manganese steel is water toughening treatment. That is, the high manganese steel is first heated to the temperature of the austenite zone and held for a period of time, so that the carbides in the as-cast structure are basically solid soluted in the austenite, and then quenched into water for rapid cooling, thereby obtaining a single supercooled Austenite . This kind of high-manganese austenite can be effectively self-hardened under the condition of strong impact abrasive wear, showing good wear resistance .
Conclusion
1) The water-toughening treatment of sintered TiC-based alloy can effectively improve its flexural strength and impact toughness, and the effect on vacuum sintered products is the most significant.
2) During the sintering process of the TiC-based steel alloy, the hard phase-matrix interface undergoes strong mutual dissolution and diffusion, resulting in the formation of a high Ti concentration distribution gradient in the matrix, which is not conducive to the effective combination of the phase interface.
3) The water toughening treatment improves the mechanical properties of TiC-based steel alloys not by further strengthening the interfacial interaction of the hard phase matrix, but by improving the uniformity of element distribution in it, which plays a role in optimizing the interfacial bonding.
4) The sintered TiC-based steel-bonded alloy should be subjected to heat treatment similar to water toughening treatment to further improve its mechanical properties and give full play to its potential as a high-quality wear-resistant material.