Fabrication and investigation of carbide billets from powders prepared by electroerosive dispersion of tungsten-containing wastes

Abstract

Results of an investigation of carbide-material (CM) billets made from powders prepared by the electroerosive dispersion (EED) of tungsten-containing alloys of the T15K6 brand are presented. To fabricate the CM powder, the installation for the EED of current-leading materials was used. Distilled water and burning kerosene were used as working fluids in its reactor. Dispersion was performed at the following electric parameters: capacitance of discharge capacitors of 35 μF, voltage of 200–220 V, and pulse-repetition frequency of 30 Hz. It is established experimentally that the CM billets, which were fabricated by cold isostatic pressing the powders prepared from wastes by the EED method at a pressure of 300 MPa and subsequent vacuum sintering at 1500°C for 2 h, have higher porosity (by a factor of 4.22–9.92), a smaller grain size (by a factor of 1.5–3.0), higher density (by 5%), lower ultimate compressive strength (by a factor of 1.2–3.2), and higher microhardness (by a factor of 1.2) compared with the industrial hard alloy of the T15K6 brand.