Authors:
Martin Bezuidenhout (1), Reinhold Wartbichler (2), José-Maria Tarragó (2), Christa Beltz de Arancibia (2), Steven Moseley (2), Natasha Sacks (1)
1- Department of Industrial Engineering, Stellenbosch University, South Africa
2- Hilti AG, Liechtenstein
Abstract:
The performance of different hardmetal cutting tip grades were investigated in this study for handheld powered reciprocating sawing of structural steel. Variants consisted of submicron-grained WC with ~14 wt.% Co binder and fine-grained WC with ~9 wt.% Co binder content. The latter was tested with and without a PVD TiAlN-based coating. Microscopy techniques were applied to analyse the wear according to the performance indicators of an industry relevant application case. Early fractures were dominant on all blades with uncoated tips. Contextually, this was not considered as traditional catastrophic failure since the blades remained operational until tips were near to or completely removed. Fractures were delayed on coated tips with signs of fatigue observed in the microstructure. Based on the main tool life limiting wear observations, critical areas are discussed which, when addressed during cutting tip manufacturing, would be expected to enhance the on-site performance of the tools.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59499/EP235764696