Boron implantation into hard metals
(This work is supporting by the EC, contract BRPR CT97-0380.)
- wear and friction behaviour
- tribological properties
- strength and hardness
This study demonstrates that hardness and wear characteristics of the hard metal H3 (15%Co, WC, grain size ~1µm) can be improved by boron implantation. It wasn't detected a new phase formation. So it seems that the improvement of mechanical properties is caused by radiation induced defects.
Figure: Wear results of a 3 mm diameter tungsten carbide sphere,
sliding under a load of 1 N on cemented WC (H3) samples after implantation
with 40 keV boron at a fluence of 5x1017 ions/cm2
at different temperatures