Study on rare-earth doped cemented carbides in China

The rare-earth doped cemented carbides have being investigated and developed for mass production in China since 1990 due to their obvious physical and mechanical properties as hardness, transverse rupture strength, impact toughness, wear resistance, cutting life and so on. The studies on rare-earth doped cemented carbides in China are reviewed in this paper. The doped compositions and contents, addition approaches, processing scheme, strengthening mechanism, microstructure and mechanical properties of rare-earth doped cemented carbides are described and discussed according to the processing techniques. The typical brand, chemical and physical properties of rare-earth doped cemented carbides in Chinese production are introduced briefly. In order to further improve the cemented carbides quality, more research works should be focused on the chemical co-precipitation mixing method and the increment of the contents of α-Co binder with fcc structure in WC/Co alloys in China in future.