.

Surface and Coatings Technology 130 2000 4651

Wear resistance of thermal sprayed coatings on the base of
recycled hardmetal
Priit Kulu
U
, Sergei Zimakov
Department of Materials Technology, Tallinn Technical Uniersity, Ehitajate tee 5, 19086 Tallinn, Estonia
Abstract
. The application of used recycled hardmetal base powders for new composite powder production for thermal spraying was
studied. The detonation method for the deposition of sprayed WC-Co hardmetal coatings and spray and fusion technology for
laying of melted self-uxing alloybase composite coatings containing WC-Co hardmetal particles were used. The abrasion-
erosion wear resistance of sprayed WC-Co hardmetal coatings and composite coatings from self-uxing Ni-base alloy and WC-Co
hardmetal powders was evaluated. The prospects of used hardmetal base powder application for thermal spraying were shown.
The wear resistance of sprayed used WC-Co hardmetal-based coatings was two times lower than comparative coatings from
Amdry powder; the spray and fused composite coatings exhibited a 200% higher wear resistance than non-coated steel. The ways
of improving the abrasion-erosion wear resistance of sprayed and melted used WC-Co hardmetal powder-based thermal sprayed
coatings are offered: using a narrow range of granulometry of powder, plated with Co and Ni hardmetal powder and powder with
spheroidal particles. 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Thermal spray coating; Wear; Abrasion-erosion; Hardmetal; Recycling
1. Introduction
In terms of product lifetime for engineering materi-
als and parts, the surface is of prime concern. This
involves both corrosion behavior and mechanical
properties such as material wear. To protect against
corrosion and increase the wear resistance of materials
and parts, various coating techniques have proved
effective. For strengthening parts subjected to the in-
tensive abrasion-erosion wear at extreme conditions
.
high velocities and pressure, cyclic impact load, etc.
gas thermal coatings are highly effective. Recent atten-
tion has focused on reduced consumptions of existing
resources and materials recycling. Therefore, the appli-
.
cation of composite powders based on used recycled
hardmetals for thermal spraying is topical.
U
Corresponding author. Tel.: q372-620-3352; fax: q372-620-3196.
. E-mail address: pkulu@edu.ttu.ee P. Kulu .
This paper discusses the abrasion-erosion wear resis-
tance of gas thermal coatings deposited by detonation
spraying and gas ame spray and fusion onto 0.45% C
steel substrates.
2. Experimental details
2.1. Coating materials
We used WC-Co hardmetal powders, produced from
recycled hardmetal by disintegrator milling, as basic
w x
components of detonation sprayed coatings 1,2 . Parti-
.
cle size ranged from 32 to 160 m Table 1 . Fig. 1a
illustrates the particle shape from y125 m. Particles
were primarily equiaxed in form, and their microstruc-
ture showed a typical hardmetal structure based on
tungsten carbide.
For comparison, we used the hardmetal powder WC-

12Co, specied as Amdry 927 from 10 to 45 m Sulzer

0257-8972r00r$ - see front matter 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.
. PII: S 0 2 5 7 - 8 9 7 2 0 0 0 0 6 8 7 - 3
( ) P. Kulu, S. Zimako rSurface and Coatings Technology 130 2000 4651 47
.
Metco Inc. and aglomerated and sintered WC-15Co,

specied as Kiev BK15B from y40 m Institute of

.
Welding, Kiev, Ukraine . Fig. 1b,c illustrates the parti-
cle shape of these powders.
The spray and fused coatings contained NiCrSiB
alloy powders as basic components. Table 2 shows the
chemical composition of the self-uxing alloy powders
for the powder composites. With a spherical shaped,
their particle size was q60100 m.
We studied the effect of matrix hardness, hard phase
content and hardmetal particle size on the abrasion-
erosion wear resistance.

We used different methods sieving, image and laser

.
analysis for granulometry and morphology description
of the powders produced by mechanical milling from
recycled hardmetal.
2.2. Coating technology
Sprayed coatings were deposited by the detonation
method on structural steel of 0.45% C content as the
substrate material. The hardness of the substrate mate-
rial was 200 HV. Spray parameters are shown in Table
3. Hardmetal powders of size ranging from 32 to 160
m were sprayed by means of the Perun-S Detonation
.
Spray System Institute of Welding, Kiev, Ukraine
with propane and oxygen as combustion gases.
We studied the inuence of hardmetal particle size

on the efciency of spraying thickness of layer per

.
shot and the properties of the coatings.
The spray and fused coatings based on self-uxing
alloys with WC-Co hardmetal particles from 60 to 500

m were deposited by the Eutalloy Flame Gun Casto-

.
lin SA, Switzerland on structural steel of 0.45% C
content as the substrate material. Acetylene and oxy-
gen were used as combustion gases.
The detonation sprayed coatings were approximately
0.3 mm thick, and the spray and fused coatings were
from 0.5 to 1 mm thick.
2.3. Abrasion-erosion wear testing
Modelling of wear and the study of wear mechanism
were performed in a centrifugal accelerator as shown
w x
in Fig. 2 3 . Our testing method comprised the abrad-
ing of the specimens with a stream of abrasive quartz
sand particles. Table 4 demonstrates the parameters of
wear.
Based on the weight loss of abraded material, wear

factors loss of mass or volume per 1 kg of abrading

material in milligrams per kilogram and millimeters
.
cubed per kilogram, respectively were calculated. The
relative wear resistance E was calculated as the ratio

of the wear rates of the coated and non-coated subs-

trate material.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Structure, porosity and hardness of the coatings
The cross-section of detonation sprayed coatings is
shown in Fig. 3. Their porosity depended on the parti-
cle size of the used hardmetal powders, ranging from
.
4.1 to 16.5% Table 5 .
.
The cross-section of the NiCrSiB-25 wt.% WC-15Co
coating is shown in Fig. 4. NiCrSiB self-uxing alloy
forms a matrix with WC-Co hard particles, which are
w x
partially dissolved in the Ni-base matrix 4 .
The results of the study demonstrated that powder
particle size had a great inuence on the thickness of
the obtained detonation sprayed coatings. As shown in
Table 6, with ne powders, thickness per shot was
approximately two times higher. More important is the
particle shape of the spraying powder: with the spheri-
.
cal powder WC-12Co Amdry , the coating thickness
was three to four times higher than that with the
isometric powder produced by mechanical milling of
recycled hardmetal.
3.2. Wear resistance of sprayed coatings
The abrasion-erosion wear resistance of the detona-
tion sprayed coating from recycled hardmetal powders
.
at small impact angle 30 was not high approxi-
mately two times lower than that of comparative coat-
.
ings from Amdry powder Table 7 .
Table 1
Main characteristics of hardmetal powders
Type of Granulometry Characterization of powders
. powder m 2
. . . Main fraction m 70% Surface in wt. unit m rg
For detonation spraying 3240 1530 0.093
6380 4070 0.088
)80 90140 0.085
For composite melted coatings q60125 3060 0.006
q125250 70230 0.003
q250500 270400 0.001
( ) P. Kulu, S. Zimako rSurface and Coatings Technology 130 2000 4651 48
Fig. 1.
Table 2
Chemical composition of self-uxing alloy powders
. Powder Granulometry Chemical composition wt.%
a
. codes m
Ni Cr Si B
12494 q60100 Base 8.014.0 1.22.3 1.72.5
12495 q60100 Base 10.016.0 3.05.0 2.04.0
12496 q60100 Base 12.018.0 3.55.5 2.54.5
a
Powders of Castolin SA, Switzerland.
The low wear resistance of the sprayed coatings from
recycled hardmetal powders is caused by the peculiari-
ties of the powders produced by mechanical milling of
the hardmetal. As the reduction of hardmetal part size
by impact loading takes place by the transcrystalline

failure of the tungsten carbide hard phase the line of

fracture passes through the tungsten carbide grains,
.
and not round their boundaries binder metal , each
hardmetal powder particle is a composite material

outer surface of the particle is WC, binder phase-Co is

. w x
inside the particle . As shown in 5 , the wear resistance
of sprayed coatings from pure hard phase powders or
mechanical mixture of powders is lower by one order of
magnitude than that of coatings from alloy powders.
Based on the wear mechanism study, the wear of the
coating results from the direct fracture of carbides and
.
low cyclic fatigue of the matrix metal Fig. 5a or from
.
microcutting Amdry powder Fig. 5b . It differs
w x
from the wear of hardmetals 6 and from the abrasive
w x
wear in other conditions 7 .
3.3. Wear resistance of spray and fused coatings
Table 8 shows the relative wear resistance of conven-
.
tional melted NiCrSiB 12494 coating and that of the
coatings reinforced with hardmetal particles. As shown,
the wear resistance of the composite coatings exceeds
that of conventional NiCrSiB coating by a factor of
approximately 1.5. Depending on the hardmetal parti-
cle content, the coating with 1550 wt.% of hardmetal
showed a relative wear resistance of 1.32 times that of
.
pure NiCrSiB coating Table 8 .
With the difference in the wear resistance of the
coatings from pure self-uxing Ni-base alloys of dif-
w x
ferent hardness up to two times 4 , the effect of the
NiCrSiB matrix hardness on the wear resistance of
composite coatings was insignicant; the wear factors
differed by only 3040%. This is because the hardness
of the matrix phase is higher than that of a matrix
without hardmetal particles. The higher hardness is
attributed to dissolved hardmetal particles within the
. Fig. 1 Micrographs of hardmetal powders: a WC-15 Co powder
. . from y125 m; b WC-15Co Kiev powder; and c WC-12Co Amdry
powder.
( ) P. Kulu, S. Zimako rSurface and Coatings Technology 130 2000 4651 49
Table 3
Detonation gun spray parameters of WC-Co powders
Parameters Value
. Combustion gases ow rate lrmin
C H 17
2 2
O 14
2
. Detonation frequency Hz 6.6
. Spray distance mm 120
. Powder feed lrmin 12.5
Number of passes 30
Ni-base matrix. With the hardness of pure NiCrSiB
self-uxing alloys from 430 to 930 HV, in practice, the
microhardness of different Ni-base matrices with dis-
solved hardmetal micro-sized particles varied slightly.
The study of the effect of the amount of hard phase
.
hardmetal particles from 15 to 50 wt.% on the wear
resistance of composite coatings showed that an in-
crease in the amount of hardmetal particles of compos-
ite coatings resulted in an increase in the wear resis-
w x
tance under wear conditions at small impact angles 4 .
Under straight impact, as a result of an increase in the
hard phase content, the wear resistance of the coatings
decreased.
The inuence of hard phase particle size on the wear
resistance of a coating in the range of the studied hard
. w x
metal particle size q60500 m is insignicant 4 .
The mechanism of the wear of melted coatings is
similar to that of hardmetals: with small impact angles,
microcutting is dominating; with great impact angles
Fig. 2. Centrifugal accelerator for testing materials wear resistance
. . . in abradant particles jet GOST 23.201 : 1 specimen; 2 abrasive
. . . . particles vessel; 3 shield; 4 rotor; 5 drive motor; 6 rotation
. frequency gauge; and 7 radial rotor channels.
Table 4
Parameters of abrasion-erosion wear
Parameters Value
. Particle size of abrasive mm 0.10.3
. Hardness of abrasive HV 11001200
. Velocity of abrasive particles mrs 80
. Impact angles of a stream of abrasives 30 and 90
the wear of coatings results from the direct fracture of
w x
carbides and low cyclic fatigue of matrix metal 6 .
4. Conclusions
.
1. The prospects of used recycled hardmetal base
powder application for detonation spraying are
Fig. 3. Micrographs of the cross-section of detonation sprayed WC-Co
. . . coatings: a WC-15Co from 3240 m; b WC-15Co Kiev; and c
WC-12Co Amdry.
( ) P. Kulu, S. Zimako rSurface and Coatings Technology 130 2000 4651 50
Table 5
Porosity and hardness of detonation sprayed WC-Co hardmetal
coatings
Type of coating Porosity Hardness
. . % HV0.2
WC-15Co
3240 m 4.1 815
6380 m 4.9 765
)80 m 16.5 780
WC-15Co Kiev BK 15B 2.7 945
a
WC-12Co Amdry 927 2.1 680r1155
a
Hardness of Co-based matrixrhardness of hardmetal particles.
shown. The lower abrasion-erosion wear resistance
of detonation sprayed hardmetal coatings is due to
the peculiarities of the powders produced by im-
pact milling from recycled hardmetal.
2. New NiCrSiB self-uxing alloybase composite
powders containing WC-Co hardmetal powder
.
from 15 to 50 wt.% can be produced from used
.
recycled hardmetals. It was found that the wear
.
resistance of melted NiCrSiB WC-Co coatings is
high. It increased with an increase in the hard
phase content in the matrix as well as with an
increase in matrix hardness in the composite at
Fig. 4. Micrograph of the cross-section of spray and fused NiCrSiB-25
. wt.% WC-15Co coating.
Table 6
. Detonation spraying efciency thickness of layer per shot
. Type of spraying material Porosity Thickness m
. . and particles size m %
Total Per shot
WC-15Co
q3240 4050 1.52 4.1
q6380 2535 11.5 4.9
q80 2030 0.71.0 16.5
WC-12Co Amdry 927
q1045 150160 55.3 2.1
Fig. 5. Worn surfaces. Topographical images of the sprayed WC-15Co
. . coating a and the WC-12Co Amdry coating b at impact angle 30.
small impact angles of abrasive particles. To pre-
serve the determined structure of spray and fused
composite coatings, methods with long heating and
fusion time must be avoided.
3. The wear resistance of thermally-sprayed coatings
.
can be improved by: a the use of a narrow range
of granulometry of hardmetal powders for detona-
.
tion spraying; b using hardmetal powder particles
.
with plastic metals cobalt or nickel to increase
Table 7
Wear resistance of detonation sprayed coatings
Type of coating Wear factor
3
. mm rkg
WC-15Co
3240 m 16.1
6380 m 17.1
)80 m 18.3
WC-15Co Kiev BK15B 9.4
WC-12Co Amdry 927 7.4
Table 8
Relative abrasion-erosion wear resistance of spray and fused compos-
. ite NiCrSiB- WC-15Co coatings
Composition of coatings Relative volume wear
. resistance E

s30 s90
NiCrSiB 1.3 0.8
NiCrSiB-15 wt.% WC-Co 1.5 0.7
NiCrSiB-25 wt.% WC-Co 1.9 0.6
NiCrSiB-50 wt.% WC-Co 2.0 0.6
( ) P. Kulu, S. Zimako rSurface and Coatings Technology 130 2000 4651 51
cohesion between particles in the sprayed coatings;
.
and c the spheroidization of powder particles,
which enhances the technological properties of the
spraying powders.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Estonian Science
Foundation grant No. 3404. Authors would like to
acknowledge Dr P. Vuoristo from the Tampere Univer-
sity of Technology for performing the detonation spray-
ing of coatings.
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