The effect of microstructure of cemented tungsten carbide materials on their mechanical properties and wear characteristics was investigated using nanoindentation and nanoscratch methods. The results indicated that the variation in grain size insignificantly affected the hardness, elastic modulus and friction coefficient of the work materials, but considerably influenced their removal rates. The carbide with coarser grains exhibited a much higher removal rate was obtained during scratching.
Influence of Laser Pulse Number on the Ablation of Cemented Tungsten Carbides (WC-CoNi) with Different Grain Size