Materials Letters 61 (2007) 2454 2456

www.elsevier.com/locate/matlet

Characterization of WC/Co coatings on metal substrates

Guo Jin a,b,, Bin-shi Xu b , Hai-dou Wang b , Qing-fen Li a , Shi-cheng Wei b
a
b

Center for Biomedical Materials and Engineering,, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, China
National Key Laboratory for Remanufacturing, Armored Forces Engineering Institute, Beijing, China
Received 14 December 2005; accepted 16 September 2006
Available online 4 October 2006

Abstract
In the present work, WC/Co coatings were obtained by electro-thermal explosion directional spraying technology. The performances including
microstructure, elements distribution, hardness, elastic modulus and wear resistance of the coatings were investigated by means of SEM, EDAX,
nano-indentation test, friction and wear test, respectively. Results show that WC/Co coatings are characterized by compact construction, good
bond, high hardness and elastic modulus. The WC/Co coatings also have outstanding wear resistance.
2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Electro-thermal explosion spraying; WC/Co coatings; Performances

1. Introduction
Cermet thermal spraying coatings are widely used in wear
situations because they combine several advantages such as
resistance to abrasion, erosion, corrosive atmospheres and high
temperature [1]. WC/Co is one of the most useful cermet
thermal spraying materials. But for the traditional thermal
spraying technology, it's difficult to gain the high quality cermet
coatings for high porosity and poor bonding of the coatings.
Electro-thermal explosion directional spraying (EEDS),
a new spraying method, will be used widely due to its ability
to process coatings with compact microstructure, high microhardness, low porosity and good bonding. Ushakov [2], and
Tamura [3,4] investigated the characteristics of the EEDS
process. They concluded that the EEDS technique was characterized by the duration of process of between 1 and 10 ms, a
plasma temperature about 104 K, the speed of spraying particles
up to 34.5 km/s, and an average cooling rate of particles up to
109 K/s.
Few researches have been done on the microstructure and
tribological properties of EEDS coatings. Tamura studied the
Corresponding author. National Key Laboratory for Remanufacturing,
Armored Forces Engineering Institute, Beijing, China. Tel.: +86 451 82518173.
E-mail address: jg97721@yahoo.com.cn (G. Jin).
0167-577X/$ - see front matter 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.matlet.2006.09.036

formation mechanism of ceramic powders [3,4]. Mizusako [5]

investigated the microstructure of ZrOB graded coating.
This study is aimed to have deeper knowledge of the microstructure and wear performances of EEDS WC/Co coatings.
The relationship between mechanical and tribological properties
was also discussed.
2. Experiments
The medium carbon steel of AISI 1045, 30 30 10 mm in
size, was selected as substrates for spraying treatment. The
surface of samples was cleaned and degreased. The spayed
material was WC/Co with the nominal composition Co 6% and
WC rest (YG6). The spayed material was machined to
0.2 mm 5 mm 60 mm foil. The coatings were produced by
EEDS [6]. The applied voltage was 4850 V and the thickness of
coating was about 100 m.
Observations of the cross-section morphology of the coatings were conducted in a Philips Quant 200 scanning electron
microscope (SEM) equipped with an EDAX apparatus. The
nano-hardness and nano-elastic modulus of the coatings was
investigated using the nano-indentation tester.
Friction and wear tests were measured in a block-on-ring test
with coated blocks and TiCN cement ring under the applied
loads of 300 N. The lubrication oil was 650SN. The liner speed

G. Jin et al. / Materials Letters 61 (2007) 24542456

2455

Table 1
EDAX results of WC/Co coatings
Element (wt.%)

Fe

Area A
Area B

37.73
22.55

57.13
65.23

5.14
12.22

using an optical microscope. Wear mechanism of the coatings

was determined by observing the worn morphologies. The AISI
1045 steel was selected as compared material.
3. Results and discussions
3.1. Microstructures

Fig. 1. SEM micrographs of WC/Co coatings. (a) Coating area and (b) transition
area.

was 0.42 m/s, and the sliding time varied from 10 min to 60 min.
The variation of friction coefficient with sliding time was
recorded automatically. The width of worn scar was measured

Fig. 2. Nano-mechanical properties of WC/Co coatings.

The microstructures of WC/Co coatings are shown in Fig. 1. It can

be seen from Fig. 1(a) that the coatings have compact microstructure
and no lamellar structure. During the spraying process, the WC/Co
foils are melted firstly, then gasified and exploded when they absorb
enough energy. The highest pressure at the centre of exploding gas is
up to 710 GPa and the highest temperature is up to 104 K. And the
flying speed of spraying droplets can be up to 30004500 ms 1. Under
the condition of high pressure, high temperature and high speed, the
melted spraying droplets impact the substrate, then deform, solidify
quickly and form compact fine grain coating [79].
The bond micrographs of WC/Co coatings are shown in Fig. 1(b).
The coatings are well combined with the substrate and the transition
area can be obviously seen. There exist columnar grain and isometric
crystal in the transition area. EDAX results show that the diffusion of
element W and C within the interface zone of coatings is obvious. At the
same time, the contents of W, Fe and C are different between the grain
boundary and intracrystalline (Table 1). The content of W at the
grain boundary is higher than that of intracrystalline. It can be concluded that the bond between the coatings and the substrate is diffusive
and metallurgical one [10]. During the spraying process, the surface of
substrate is melted by spraying droplets with a temperature of 3000
4000 C. During the later solidification period, the columnar grain and
isometric crystal are formed. The diffusion will take place due to the
concentration grads in the bond area [11] and the diffusion distance
reaches 510 m. The diffusive and metallurgical bond will be
beneficial in increasing the bond strength and wear resistance.

Fig. 3. Wear properties of WC/Co coatings.

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G. Jin et al. / Materials Letters 61 (2007) 24542456

wear resistance of WC/Co coatings is much higher than that of

AISI 1045 steel. The main wear failure mechanism is the pull-out
of hard particles.
Acknowledgements
The research is supported financially by 863 Project
(2003AA331130). The authors thank professor Liu Zong-de
from North China Electric Power University China for preparing
the coatings and professor Miao He-zuo from Tsinghua
University China for supplying cermet samples.
References

Fig. 4. Morphologies of worn surfaces.

3.2. Nano-mechanical properties

The nano-mechanical properties are shown in Fig. 2. The nanohardness and nano-elastic modulus can be calculated [12,13] from the
curve of load with displacement. The nano-hardness of WC/Co
coatings and 1045 steel is 32.4 GPa and 2.4 GPa, respectively. The
nano-elastic modulus of the two materials is 414.8 GPa and 183.2 GPa,
respectively. The hardness/modulus of elasticity ratio (H/E ratio) for
this EEDS WC/Co coating is higher than the laser WC/Ni coatings (the
former, 0.0781, the later, 0.0601 [14]). The high H/E ratio has some
beneficial effects on the wear resistance.
3.3. Analysis of wear resistance
Fig. 3 shows the variation of volume loss of WC/Co coating and the
AISI 1045 steel as functions of sliding time. It can be seen that the
volume loss increases linearly with the increase in sliding time and the
volume loss of WC/Co coatings is always lower than that of AISI 1045
steel. In the case of two surfaces in relative movement, a protuberance
can be considered a hard particle if its surface is harder than that of the
counterpart [15]. So, the high hardness of carbides presents an
attractive solution for protecting surfaces against wear [1].
The worn micrograph of WC/Co coatings is shown in Fig. 4. It can
be seen that the main wear mechanism of WC/Co coatings is the pullout of hard particles. This is because that the extrusive hard particles
endure the load during the process of wear. After the long-term action
of high load, the bond between the hard particles and the binding
material will slacken, and finally the hard particles will be pulled out.

4. Conclusions
Microstructure observations show that the coatings possess
such good properties as compact microstructure, low content of
oxidation and decomposition, high microhardness and good
bond. In the transition area, the diffusion of W, Fe and C is
obvious and there exist the columnar grain and isometric crystal.
The two phenomena show that the bond between the coating and
substrate is a metallurgical and diffusive one. The microhardness
and elastic modulus is high for the fine grain strengthening. The

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