Room-temperature deformation mechanisms and the defect structure of tungsten carbide

Orientation-dependent hardness and nanoindentation-induced deformation mechanisms of WC crystals

“…All of the present results are in good accordance with the experimental observations of Takahashi and Freise [5], Hibbs and Sinclair [14] and Luyckx et al [16] using Vickers macro-and microindentations and of Cuadrado et al [10] using Berkovich nanoindentation, where similar slip line formations were reported around the indents on the basal and prismatic planes. Furthermore, the measured sink-in and pile-up effects are also in good agreement with Luyckx et al [16], who found similar behaviour on basal and prismatic orientated WC single crystals under Vickers microhardness test.…”

“…The third assumption, which is based on several TEM investigations [14], is that only the three prismatic slip planes 1 0 1 0 È É are taken into account as potential gliding planes indicated by n i (i = 1, 2, 3) normal vectors. Additionally, four independent slip directions h1 1 2 3i are considered to belong to each slip plane, along which direction the glide is possibly indicated by v i,j (i = 1, 2, 3 and j = 1, 2, 3, 4) direction vectors, where |n i | = 1 and |v i,j | = 1, producing 12 different slip systems (see Fig.…”

“…Additionally, four independent slip directions h1 1 2 3i are considered to belong to each slip plane, along which direction the glide is possibly indicated by v i,j (i = 1, 2, 3 and j = 1, 2, 3, 4) direction vectors, where |n i | = 1 and |v i,j | = 1, producing 12 different slip systems (see Fig. 8a and b) [5,14,21]. According to the notation of Fig.…”

“…Moreover, several macro-and microindentation-based studies have been carried out by optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observations [5,6,[13][14][15][16], and also with the electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) technique [11], to investigate the anisotropic deformation mechanisms. To the best of our knowledge no experimental results or theoretical models have been reported so far on the hardness anisotropy depending on the grain orientation under nanoindentation.…”

Mechanical deformation of WC–Co composite micropillars under uniaxial compression

“…2a and b). Similar features have been observed by compressing micropillars carved in WC prismatic planes [22] and are associated with a splitting dislocation reaction in the f1010gh1123i predominant slip system [28,29].…”