Katerina Kimes¹, Pierangeli Rodriguez De Vecchis¹, Danielle Brunetta¹, Drew Elhassid², Markus Chmielus¹; ¹Univ of Pittsburgh, ²General Carbide Corporation

Tungsten carbide-cobalt (WC-Co) is a cermet material known for its excellent mechanical properties. Its microstructure is composed of hard, brittle carbide grains surrounded by a tough Co-matrix. Traditionally, WC-Co parts are shaped by pressing, extruding, or molding, resulting in low-density green parts held together by wax, later de-waxed and sintered. This process is restricted both by mass production and shape detail. Additive manufacturing, particularly binder jet-printing is an alternative to produce specific, highly complex shapes in a cost and time effective manner. Fine-particle WC-Co powder was provided by General Carbide Corporation and characterized as nearly-spherical agglomerates composed of nano-sized particles. The design of experiments method was employed to determine optimal parameters for powder bed packing and also for printing. Parts sintered and HIPed at General Carbide were analyzed for hardness and density. With optimal parameters, parts can be binder jet printed with mechanical properties and microstructures comparable to traditionally-manufactured parts.