DESIGN OF Co-FREE CEMENTED CARBIDES

The main driving force for replacing Co as the binder in cemented carbides is due to possible restrictions in the European regulations regarding Co. The first systematical investigations of alternative binder systems based on Fe and Ni were performed in the 1980's but in absence of a strong driving force to replace Co the efforts did not lead to any new material. More recently different promising alternatives have been presented which could lead to reasonable solutions for the cemented carbide industry. Nevertheless, the important sector of metal cutting still suffers from a lack of suitable binder phase replacement. The present work identifies the crucial points for the materials developing focusing on metal cutting applications. A computational materials design approach has been applied by using thermodynamic and kinetic models involving DFT, DICTRA and CALPHAD-type of calculations.