Tungsten Carbide Balls Production Steps

The production of tungsten carbide balls incorporates advanced technologies such as powder metallurgy, precision pressing, and high-temperature sintering. Each step requires strict control to ensure the product possesses superior properties such as high hardness, high wear resistance, and corrosion resistance.

The production steps for tungsten carbide balls are as follows:

Raw Material Preparation → Wet Milling and Mixing → Dry Granulation → Molding and Pressing → High-Temperature Sintering → Precision Machining → Quality Inspection → Packaging and Warehousing

1. Raw Material Preparation and Formula Design

Core Raw Materials: Micron-sized metal carbide powders such as tungsten carbide (WC) and titanium carbide (TiC) are primarily used, with binders such as cobalt (Co), nickel (Ni), or molybdenum (Mo) added.

Formula Design: The ingredient ratio is adjusted according to the intended use. For example, increasing the cobalt content improves toughness, while reducing it enhances hardness and wear resistance. Common grades include YG6 (6% cobalt) and YG8 (8% cobalt), each suitable for different wear-resistant applications.

2. Wet Grinding and Mixing

Wet grinding: The raw powder is mixed with ethanol, water, and an organic binder and milled in a ball mill for 8-55 hours. Wet grinding can break the particle size limit of dry grinding, grinding the powder to the nanometer level and ensuring uniform distribution of the components.

Mixing Effect: A uniform suspension is ultimately formed, laying the foundation for subsequent molding.

3. Drying and Granulation

Spray Drying: The suspension is pumped into a spray dryer, where hot nitrogen evaporates the solvent, resulting in uniformly sized granules (20-200 microns in diameter).

Purpose of granulation: Improves powder flowability for subsequent compacting.

4. Molding and Pressing

Cold Isostatic Pressing: The mixture is loaded into an elastic rubber spherical mold and compacted under high pressure. This technique ensures uniform density and reduces internal defects in the spheres. Ball Formation: After pressing, a rough ball is initially formed, but the ball is relatively fragile and requires further processing.

5. High-Temperature Sintering

Vacuum Sintering: The rough ball is sintered in a vacuum furnace at 1500°C for 13 hours. At high temperatures, binders such as cobalt melt and tightly bond with the tungsten carbide particles, forming a dense structure.

Performance Improvement: The sintered ball has a hardness of ≥90.5 HRA, a density of approximately 14.9 g/cm³, and wear resistance dozens to hundreds of times that of traditional steel balls.

6. Precision Machining (Optional)

Grinding and Polishing: The sintered ball undergoes grinding, preliminary lapping, final lapping, and polishing, using abrasives such as diamond resin-bonded grinding wheels or green silicon carbide to gradually improve the surface finish to a mirror-like finish.

Precision Control: Parameters such as grinding wheel speed and pressure are controlled to ensure roundness and surface roughness.

7. Quality Inspection and Packaging

Inspection items include hardness, density, roundness, and surface roughness to ensure compliance with international standards.

Packaging and Warehousing: After passing inspection, products are moisture-proof packaged and stored in warehouses for shipment.

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