Thermophysical properties of Co-free WC-FeCr hardmetals

Fe-Cr alloys can potentially replace carcinogenic Co as the binder system in WC-hardmetals. Furthermore, they may be used in emerging applications such as nuclear fusion reactor shielding, where use of Co is forbidden due to the formation of hazardous activated species. In such applications, a good understanding of thermophysical properties is critical to predicting high temperature performance. By combining several thermal analysis techniques (dilatometry, laser flash and calorimetry) we have determined the thermal conductivity and thermal expansivity of several grades of WC-FeCr hardmetals between room temperature and 1200 °C. In these materials the WC grain size was varied between 0.2 and 5 microns. The binder content was kept constant at 10 wt.%, and the nominal binder composition was Fe-8 wt.% Cr. The room temperature thermal conductivities of these materials varied between about 50 and 110 W/m-K, which are similar values to analogous WC-Co materials. Thermal expansion curves exhibited discontinuous shrinkage events at about 850 °C, due to an allotropic phase transition within the FeCr binder between its BCC and FCC structures. The magnitude of the shrinkage was about a third that predicted by the rule-of-mixtures, suggesting significant internal stresses could be generated during the transformation. Such internal stresses could affect the properties of WC-FeCr hardmetals when operating at high temperature.