Wear behavior of the micro-grooved texture on WC-Ni3Al cermet prepared by laser surface texturing

The current study investigated the influence of Ni3Al binder on the laser machining quality and wear behavior of micro-groove for the textured WC-based cermet. The micro-grooved texture was prepared on WC-10Ni3Al cermet by laser surface texturing, and its wear resistance in contact with Ti6Al4V was evaluated through the reciprocating sliding wear test. The textured WC-8Co cermet was utilized as a contrastive sample. The test results illustrated that the wear resistance of the micro-groove on WC-10Ni3Al was superior to that on WC-8Co, in terms of friction coefficient, wear loss of the counter-pair, and characteristics of the worn surface. The better wear resistance of the micro-groove on WC-10Ni3Al cermet is resulted from the synergistic effects of relatively slighter WC grain growth during laser machining and milder element diffusion in the sliding friction process.