Cemented carbide is a composite material of a soft binder metal together with a hard carbide. Carbide powder, generally between 70-97% of the total weight, is mixed with a binder metal, usually cobalt or nickel. This mixture is then compacted in a die and sintered in a furnace. The carbide particles form a metallurgical bond with the binder in the sintering process.

Material properties are influenced by the grain size, by the relative proportions of binder and carbide, or by addition of other elements. Grain size is strongly correlated with hardness. Finer grain size means higher hardness at a given binder content. The proportion of binder content controls the resistance to deformation and wear. At a given grain size, a larger proportion of binder will result in a tougher material, which is more susceptible to wear.

Our Pick Up Tools and Die Ejection Systems are mainly made of Tungsten Carbide grades with submicron grain sizes to offer the highest wear resistance.

The listed grades (K15-40) have submicron grain size, in a range of 0.5-1.0 um. This provides the high hardness seen, with K15 the hardest grade, with smallest grain size, and K40 the least hard with largest grain size.Tungsten Carbide-Cobalt (WC-Co) cemented carbides have low electrical resistance with a typical value of 20 μΩ cm.

Consequently, it is a good conductor having a value of about 10% of the copper standard. The maximum application temperature of WC–Co cemented carbides is 800 – 900°C. Above this temperature softening of the binder phase leads to tool failure.

The Tungsten Carbide grades used for our Pick Up Tools and Die Ejection Systems offer the highest rate of temperature and wear resistance out of all available materials.