Development of Pre-alloyed Powders in the Application of Diamond Tools

In the last century, with the continuous development of the diamond tool industry, processing enterprises have increasingly higher requirements for the performance of diamond tools. At the same time, tool manufacturing enterprises are also facing the pressure of continuously controlling costs. Against this background, the conventional matrix materials mainly composed of mechanically mixed elemental Metal Powders have been difficult to meet the needs of preparing high-performance diamond tools.

In order to produce diamond tools with better performance, starting from the mid-1990s, material enterprises represented by Unicore of Belgium took the lead in proposing the concept of applying ultra-fine pre-alloyed powders in diamond tools. In 1998, they successfully realized the large-scale application of such powders in tool manufacturing, gradually replacing the traditional mechanically mixed powders. Since 2000, Sagwell has also gradually independently developed metal powder materials such as micro-nano ultra-fine Iron powders and ultra-fine pre-alloyed powders.

Pre-alloyed powder refers to a metal powder composed of two or more elements, which has completed alloying during the powder-making process, and all powder particles have a composition consistent with the nominal composition.

Since this concept was put forward in the 1990s, researchers at home and abroad have carried out extensive and in-depth research on pre-alloyed powders, and gradually clarified their significant advantages in multiple aspects:

Firstly, compared with mechanically mixed powders, pre-alloyed powders have a more uniform element distribution, which can fundamentally avoid component segregation and ensure the uniformity of the matrix structure.

Secondly, pre-alloyed powders have undergone a certain degree of alloying during the preparation process, which gives the final matrix higher hardness and impact strength, thereby enhancing the holding force on diamonds.

In addition, pre-alloying significantly reduces the activation energy required for the diffusion of metal atoms during the sintering process, which helps to achieve a lower sintering temperature and a shorter sintering time. This characteristic is not only beneficial to reducing the thermal damage to diamonds, but also can reduce the consumption of electrical energy and graphite molds, improving production economy.

In the early stage of the development of ultra-fine pre-alloyed powders, the conventional atomization process was mainly used for production. The pre-alloyed powders prepared by this method have the advantages of high alloying degree, good fluidity, high production efficiency and relatively low cost. However, the particle size of the powders prepared by the conventional atomization process is generally coarser, which limits the further improvement of the matrix performance to a certain extent.

In order to overcome this limitation and further exert the unique role of ultra-fine powders, the new chemical powder-making technology adopted by Sagwell has been gradually developed and applied to the preparation of ultra-fine and nano-scale pre-alloyed powders, promoting the development of diamond tool matrix materials towards higher performance.