Experimental Research on Deep Cryogenic Treatment Process of YT30 Cemented Carbide Inserts

Deep Cryogenic treatment (DCT) is a one time permanent process, carried out in such a way that the material is slowly cooled down to the cryogenic temperature, after which it is held at that temperature for a specified period of time and is heated back to room temperature at slow rate followed by low temperature tempering. In this study, the orthogonal experiment method was used to study the DCT process of YT30 cemented carbide inserts. The primary relation of the different factors of DCT was analyzed. TH300 sclerometer was used to measure the hardness of inserts. The microscopes were used to observe the wearing profiles of inserts and microstructures before and after DCT. The orthogonal experiment results show that the effect of soaking temperature on the properties of inserts is the first factor, the soaking time is second one, the cooling rate is third one, and the last one is the tempering temperature. DCT improves the multi-type martensite transformation of Co. Therefore DCT increases hardness and enhance wear resistance of the cemented carbide inserts.