Tungsten Carbides and Hardmetal

Tungsten carbide, or hardmetal, was developed in the 1920s for wear-resistant dies to draw incandescent-lamp filament wire. Earlier efforts to manufacture the WC-W C eutectic alloy was unsuccessful because of its inherent brittleness therefore researchers diverted their attention to powder metallurgy techniques. At present, these powder metallurgy techniques are 

Tungsten carbide can be used for a wide variety of applications. It has many applications that utilize its corrosion-resistant property such as wear plates, drawing dies, and wear parts for wire wearing machines. There are other applications that make use of its high hardness 

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Table 4.94. Major tungsten-carbide and hardmetal producers ...

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