STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS ON PLANAR DEFECTS FORMED IN WC PLATELETS IN Ti-DOPED WC-Co Ti-DOPED WC-Co

• Published in: Journal of the American Ceramic Society Vol. 89; no. 10; pp. 3229 - 3234
• Main Authors: Lay, S, Loubradou, M, Schubert, W-D
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.01.2006
• ISSN: 0002-7820

Platelet-reinforced WC-Co alloys were processed by liquid-phase sintering from very fine-grained WC powders in the presence of small amounts of TiC. Large and flat WC grains develop in the material. The microstructure of these platelets was investigated by HRTEM in order to obtain information on their formation mechanism. Inside the grains, an extended defect parallel to the basal plane was observed. It can be described by a pair of stacking faults with a shear vector equal to 1/3 < 0-110 > occurring in two successive (0001) planes. At the level of the faults, the plane spacing is slightly reduced. The defect area is similar to a thin cubic layer about 0.5 nm thick at the interior of the platelet. The enhanced grain growth of the platelets is related to the presence of the defect area. 25 refs.