METHOD OF SINTERING BODY HAVING HIGH HARDNESS
Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method for preparing a sintered body having high hardness, in which a hard layer of polycrystalline diamond (hereinafter, referred as PCD) is formed on an ultra-hard substrate. Particularly, the present invention relates to a method for preparing a sintered body having high hardness, wherein the abnormal growth of diamond particles during the sintering process can be suppressed.
Background Art
A sintered body with high hardness where a hard layer of PCD is formed on a WC/Co type ultra-hard substrate, is widely used as a material for tools.
A conventional sintered body with high hardness is prepared by: positioning a raw material powder where a diamond powder and a binding powder comprising cobalt as a main ingredient are mixed, on a WC/Co type ultra-hard substrate; and charging the substrate into a fire resistant metal crucible made of a material having a high melting point of 2000 °C or more, for example Ta, Mo, Nb and the like to sinter it under the conditions of high temperature and high pressure, where diamond is stable.
A main binding material of the PCD sintered layer may be those diffused out of the ultra-hard substrate, or cobalt that is contained in the binding powder of the raw material powder. Cobalt is melted under said sintered temperature and pressure condition to form a liquid phase of cobalt, which is served as a catalyst for the PCD forming reaction. Specifically, the level of activity of diamond in such liquid cobalt becomes very high, therefore the growth and binding reactions of diamond particles, which were diffused into the liquid cobalt, are promoted to finally form a polycrystalline.
On the other hand, since the crucible is made of a material having a high melting point of 2000 °C or more, it can be stably maintained without being melted during the PCD sintering process.
Disclosure of Invention
Technical Problem
However, the method of conventional arts has a problem of abnormal growth of particles near the surface of the diamond adjacent to the crucible.
When the particle growth of diamond is occurred, it is impossible to produce a sintered body thereof having microcrystallines with a targeted particle size. When cutting a material with a tool made of a sintered body in which the abnormal particle growth was occurred, the roughness in the cross-section of the material is deteriorated.
Particularly, in case of the abnormal growth of diamond particles as much as lOO/zm or more, there is also a problem such that a wire EDM (Electrical Discharge Machining) for manufacturing a tool with the sintered body becomes impossible.
In order to prevent such abnormal particle growth of diamond, a sintering method has been proposed, in which carbides, nitrides and borides of a metal selected from Group 4A to 6A of Periodic table of elements, or mixed powder thereof, which inhibit the particle growth of diamond by being positioned on the grain boundary of the diamond particles, are mixed with a diamond powder and sintered together.
However, according to the method, since additional materials are added, the production cost is increased, and additional process for mixing and milling the mixture is further required. Further, those materials other than cobalt are packed into the gap between diamond particles, thereby causing another problem of deteriorating the compactness of sintering. Additionally, those carbides and the like may cause segregation in the resulted sintered body, thereby there has been a problem of deterioration in the homogeneosity of mechanical characteristics of the sintered body.
Technical Solution
The present invention has been designed to solve those problems of conventional arts. The present invention is to provide a method of preparing a sintered body having high hardness, in which particle growth can be suppressed by using a porous crucible having a specific porosity.
The method of preparing a sintered body with high hardness to achieve said object according to the present invention comprises:
a step of preparing a raw material powder for sintering, which comprises a diamond powder;
a step of positioning the raw material powder for sintering onto a WC/Co type ultra-hard substrate; and,
a step of forming a hard layer of PCD on said ultra-hard substrate by charging the ultra-hard substrate with the raw material powder for sintering into a crucible made of porous green compact, and then carrying out sintering under the conditions of high temperature and high pressure, where diamond is stable.
The porosity of the crucible made of porous green compact is preferably 5-40%.
Further, the melting point of the crucible made of porous green compact is preferably 1700°C or more.
The crucible is preferably porous green compact of ceramic formed of at least one selected from the group consisting of A1203, MgO, MgO-SiO2 and carbides, nitrides and oxides thereof.
The average particle size of the diamond powder is preferably 3μm or less, and the average particle size of the green compact for a crucible is preferably 1.5 times or less relative to the average particle size of the diamond particles.
The raw material powder for sintering preferably comprises a powder of binding material comprised of at least one selected from a group consisting of a catalyst transition metal from Period of 4-6 in Group 3A~7A and Group 8 of Periodic table of elements, and carbides, nitrides, borides and carbo-nitrides thereof and each solid solution thereof.
Hereinafter, the present invention is further described in detail.
As a result of intensive research, the present inventors have found that the cause of particle growth being occurred around the surface of diamond is based on the formation of a liquid pool of cobalt formed along the wall of a crucible made of a fire resistant metal, wherein the cobalt is melted out from the ultra-hard substrate or the binder. Because the level of activity of the diamond particles is very much increased in the liquid pool of cobalt, it has been thought that diamond particles adjacent to the liquid pool become grow in abnormal way.
It is assumed that the liquid pool of cobalt is formed by a phenomenon, so-called 'squeeze out'. The term 'squeeze out' means that as the diamond particles are getting closer to each other upon the process of sintering, the cobalt component between the diamond particles is squeezed out. Since the conventional crucible is comprised of a pure metal selected from, for
example Mo, Ta, Nb and the like, or alloys thereof, which are stable and compact at sintering temperature, the liquid cobalt which has been squeezed out to the outside starts to form a liquid pool thereof along the wall of the crucible.
Considering above-mentioned mechanism of particle growth, the present inventors made a research on how to prevent or reduce the liquid pool of cobalt formed along the wall of a crucible. As a result of such investigation, the inventors have found that, when a crucible used for sintering is a crucible made of porous green compact being capable of absorbing the liquid pool of cobalt, the squeezed-out liquid cobalt can be absorbed and the particle growth can be prevented.
Specifically, when an ultra-hard substrate having a diamond powder or a mixed powder of a diamond powder and a binding material powder on the surface thereof is charged into the crucible having a specific porosity, made of porous green compact, and sintered under the conditions of high temperature and pressure, where diamond is stable, a liquid material of which composition is about 100% cobalt is eluted through the periphery of the crucible wall owing to the squeeze-out. However, the liquid material is filtrated into the gap between the pores of the crucible made of green compact, and it becomes hard to make formation of a liquid pool of cobalt, which is so great that abnormal particle growth is occurred on the wall of the crucible.
The structure of the crucible according to the present invention should contain pores sufficient enough to absorb the sufficient amount of liquid cobalt in order to prevent formation of the liquid pool, and particularly the structure should be a structure made of green compact, which can maintain the porous structure and shape under the conditions of high temperature and high pressure (generally, PCD sintering is conducted under sever conditions such as 1000-1700 °C, 3- lOGpa). hi the meanwhile, when the porosity of the crucible made of green compact is less than 5%, it is difficult to absorb the sufficient amount of liquid cobalt which is capable of prevent formation of the liquid pool, and when the porosity of the crucible is over 40%, the shape of the crucible and the porous structure is partly collapsed under the severe sintering conditions, thereby it becomes difficult to carry out the sintering in stable way.
Therefore, the porosity of the crucible is preferably 5-40%.
Further, when the melting point of the crucible made of green compact is lower than the sintering temperature, the pores are filled with partially melted crucible material and it would block the absorption of the expected amount of liquid cobalt. Therefore, the melting point of the crucible material is preferably 1700 °C or more.
Preferred crucible material satisfying above said requirements is A1203, MgO, MgO- Si02 and carbides, nitrides and oxides thereof.
In the meanwhile, the smaller the size of the diamond powder is, the more the abnormal growth of diamond particles is greatly occurred. This is because, when the size of diamond becomes smaller, its interfacial area contacting with the liquid cobalt becomes larger and thus the interfacial energy, which is a driving force of particle growth, becomes dramatically increased.
Generally, when the average particle size of a diamond powder raw material is over 3AΠI, it becomes short of the interfacial energy, and thereby the frequency of occurring abnormal particle growth is significantly decreased. Therefore, the present invention has special meaning particularly in case of sintering a diamond powder having fine particle size of 3/aτι or less.
Further, the liquid cobalt is drawn into the pores of the crucible owing to so-called, capillary phenomenon. The driving force in the capillary phenomenon is surface energy. Since the surface energy is inversely proportioned to the radius of curvature formed by the interfacial surface, the capillary phenomenon is more actively occurred in green compact having minute particles relative to green compact having coarse particles.
According to the research done by the present inventors, the particle size of the green compact of a crucible, which can effectively absorb the liquid cobalt due to promoted capillary phenomenon, is determined to be 1.5 times or less relative to the diamond particles.
In theory, it is possible to sinter a diamond powder with a cobalt component diffused out of the ultra-hard substrate, thus the raw material powder can be comprised of a pure diamond powder without additional powder of a binding material.
However, it is common to premix the powder of a binding material into a diamond powder for the structural homogeneity of the resulted sintered body.
A binding material usually added to the raw material powder for sintering is a catalyst metal such as Fe, Co, Ni and the like, however, other catalyst metals may be further added to impart other characteristics to the raw material powder. The powder of a binding material may use at least one selected from transition metals from Period of 4-6 of Group 3-10 of Periodic table of elements, and carbides, nitrides, borides and carbo-nitrides thereof and each solid solution thereof.
Best Mode
Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention are described with referencing the drawings attached to the end of this specification.
EXAMPLES
A powder of a binding material comprising a cobalt powder having 1.5/aτι of the average particle size and a WC powder having 0.8κm of the average particle size was mixed with diamond powders having each 2 m and 4μm of the average particle size, according to the composition shown in the above table to provide a raw material powder for sintering. The raw material powder for sintering is loaded onto an ultra-hard substrate of WC-8wt% Co, and the resulted substrate with the mixed raw material powder is charged into a crucible made of green compact of MgO having the porosity of 35% and the average particle size of 3 aτι and a crucible made of Ta, respectively. Then they were undergone a sintering process under the condition of 1600 °C and 6Gpa for 1 hour by using a belt-type high pressure apparatus.
The resulted sintered body was subjected to an abrasion process, a polishing process and a wire-cut EDM, and then its cross-section was observed to find that in all of the specimens of the examples according to the present invention, which were charged into the crucible made of MgO, particle growth was hardly occurred. In the meantime, in specimens A and B according to the comparative example, which were charged into each Ta crucible, particle growth as much as approximately 100 mor more was seriously occurred.
On the other hand, in the comparative example C where the WC content was 35wt%, particle growth was not occurred, and it is understood that WC blocked the binding of diamond particles and this prevented particle growth.
Further, in the comparative example B, also particle growth was not occurred and it is understood that the average particle size of diamond particles is more than 3 /an and the driving
force required for particle growth is insufficient to cause serious particle growth.
As described so far, for the examples of the present invention, particle growth was hardly occurred regardless of the composition of a binding material, however for the comparative examples, particle growth was possible to be prevented only when considerable amount of WC was added.
Industrial Applicability
As seen from the above, according to the present invention, it becomes possible to prevent abnormal particle growth of diamond in a PCD layer of a sintered body having high hardness, without adding a powder of a binding material comprising additional materials for inhibiting particle growth, therefore, it is possible to prepare a sintered body having high hardness, which has excellent machinability and processability.