ZIRCONIUM DIOXIDE/TUNGSTEN CARBIDE COMPOSITE – INFLUENCE OF SINTERING TECHNIQUE ON PHASE COMPOSITION AND MICROSTRUCTURE

Zbigniew Pędzich, Alan Wilmański, Agnieszka Wojteczko, Sebastian Komarek, Dawid Kozień, Piotr Klimczyk

Pre-print pages 1-11

DOI: https://doi.org/10.62753/ctp.2025.03.1.1

keywords: particulate composite, zirconia, tungsten carbide, microstructure

abstract The paper presents the results of a comparative experiment on sintering a particulate composite in the ZrO2/WC system containing significant amounts of carbide additive (20 or 50% by volume) utilizing spark plasma sintering (SPS) or high pressure high temperature (HPHT) techniques. The experiment was conducted using commercial zirconia and tungsten carbide powders. The main aim of the experiment was to verify if it was possible to use the HTHP technique to manufacture composite parts in order to increase the efficiency of the production process. The obtained results showed that the final microstructures of the composites produced by SPS and HPHT differ significantly in their phase composition and microstructure. The materials received by the HPHT process after consolidation contained a large volume of monoclinic zirconia phase, which was a serious disadvantage of the consolidated material due to strong susceptibility to cracking. Furthermore, the short time of sintering prevented the tungsten carbide grains from modifying their shape during the sintering process. The SPS process took more time, but in result the microstructure of the composites contained a non-transformed tetragonal zirconia phase and the carbide grains transformed their shape into convex and isometric ones.