Analysing wear phenomena in WC-Co cemented carbide

Conical pick is a type of cutter which is used to cut soft structures, such as, coal, salt, concrete, etc. It has cone-shaped cemented carbide (CC) tip inserted in the steel body through brazing technique. For different rock strength, conical picks of different shapes are used. The cemented carbide hard-metal, a mixture of tungsten carbide (WC) and cobalt (Co), is made by powder metallurgy process. Cemented carbide has an ideal combination of hardness, toughness and resistance to abrasive wear. There have been extensive researches to develop substitutes of CC. A few materials have indeed been found to be harder than WC. However, due to insufficient impact resistance, they have not to be proved good for cutting coal/rock.