High wear resistance TiC metal matrix composites based on reactive hot pressing

Raising raw material prices is generating demands for novel material compositions enabling cost reduction. In the field of high wear resistant materials, WC-Co based materials are dominating when extremely performance is needed. Due to increase of material prices for example, in the mining equipment there is a need for lower cost material having wear resistance between high-end wear steels and WC-Co hard metals. In this study, TiC based metal matrix composites were studied based on cost effective reactive hot pressing technology. Effect of different metal matrices on wear behavior in crushing pin-on-disk test was evaluated. Conducted tests showed that by utilizing high work hardening matrix materials, wear resistance can be effectively increased. Test results were compared against wear resistant steels and typical WC-Co grades used in mining applications. Results show that developed compositions are potential candidates even to substitute traditional WC-Co in certain applications.