Effects of a new type of grain growth inhibitor on sintering behavior of YG10 cemented carbide

The effects of a new type of grain growth inhibitor on vacuum sintering behavior of nanograined WC-10Co powders produced by mechanical alloying as well as its affecting mechanism were investigated. The results show that the new grain growth inhibitor can promote sintering densification process. Adding the new inhibitor to traditional transitional group element carbides, composite inhibitors become much more effective, obviously induce oriented WC grain growth and evidently encumber plate-like WC grain formation during sintering. For WC-10Co-(0.8VC/Cr_3C_2) powders with 0.1% of the new additive, the density of 14.48 g/cm~3 can be achieved after sintering at 1375 ℃ for 30 min, corresponding to the grain size of 160 nm and the micro-hardness of 2.150 GPa.