Indentation Induced Mechanical Behavior of Spark Plasma Sintered WC-Co Cemented Carbides Alloyed with Cr3C2, TaC-NbC, TiC, and VC

The focus of this paper is on examining the mechanical behavior of spark plasma sintered WC-Co based composites doped with Cr3C2, TaC-NbC, TiC, and VC, as well as defining some parameters characterizing deformation and fracture processes during hardness measurement. The calculated microhardness of WC-Co cemented carbides for all the studied compositions is found to be higher than the results obtained during hardness testing. Therefore, the ratio of the experimental and calculated values of microhardness is shown to be an approximate indication of WC-Co cemented carbide sensitivity to damage processes during indentation. Some parameters characterizing the microstructure-microhardness relationship are defined, and the nanomechanical properties of WC-Co cemented carbide phases are examined in order to separate the deformation and fracture processes during the indentation process. Strain gradient linear function parameters are calculated for 10-cycle nanoindentation. It was found that the nanoindentation curve after 10 cycles shows anomalous behavior of the WC grains, which indicates their fracture processes.