Talk:Tungsten carbide

Preparation

How do you make Tungsten Carbide?

By reacting tungsten and carbon at high temperatures. I can't yet find a reference for exactly how high. Physchim62 20:50, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Why isn't this explained better then ????

I found this patent http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7108831.html which seems to suggest that it can be produced by high temperature reaction of tungsten oxides with a carbon dioxide/monoxide mixture. This one in particular mentions the inclusion of hydrogen in the gas mixture, but several other patents do not. I'm not sure of the exact industrial method that is most widely used. Naffer 01:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The method most commonly used in the industry is sintering followed by grinding.

Veddan 10:00, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Neutron reflector

There was a "trivia" section here mentioning the death of Louis Slotin; I removed it, since trivia sections suck. (Except maybe for articles on episodes of television shows, where nobody cares. :-) What is worth adding to the article is that tungsten carbide has been/is used as a neutron reflector, but I have no idea how to put in any more than "tungsten carbide has been used as a neutron reflector", which is a bit lacking. If anyone has more details (besides the lame "there once was a criticality accident involving tungsten carbide"), do add. JRM · Talk 10:04, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

SEE for example: Under the Cloud: The Decades of Nuclear Testing By Richard Lee Miller Published by Two-Sixty Press, 1986 ISBN 0029216206, / Corrosion Induced by Low-energy Radionuclides: Modeling of Tritium and Its Radiolytic and Decay Products Formed in Nuclear Installations By Gilbert Bellanger Published by Elsevier, 2005 ISBN 0080445101. Neutron reflectors are used to bring the radioactive material to criticality by reflecting neutrons back into the mass that would otherwise be lost.76.110.165.21 (talk) 00:28, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

copy(paste)vio?

This series of additions seems to have grabbed information directly from hardmaterials.sandvik.com (like this page. --Splarka (rant) 07:06, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I removed the copyrighted material and warned the user with {{subst:nothanks|Tungsten carbide}}. —Keenan Pepper 14:50, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

71.113.22.200's "Ditungsten Carbide" edits

Is this "Ditungsten Carbide" business legit? —Ben FrantzDale 05:26, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is. It seems very weird that a ionic compound would have an organic prefix, but the same occures with Manganese (IV) Oxide, it is more commonly known as manganese dioxide. Assume that ditungsten carbide refers to the lower oxidation state, tungsten 2+ and mono refers to the higher oxidation state 4+. Kyanite 23:56, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

In fiction ???

The "In fiction" section adds nothing to our knowledge of tungsten carbide; if they are of interest to anyone at all, it would be Monty Python fans or Halo fans, not tungsten carbide users. Tungsten carbide is probably mentioned thousands of times in fiction of various sorts, why would an encyclopedia mention any of them? How does one decide which fictional mentions are encyclopedic and which aren't? I think this section should be deleted, any other opinions? Sparohok 06:53, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Armor-piercing ammunition?

The bulk of information regarding the Applications comes from http://www.tungstenchina.com/product/Tungsten-Carbide-Products-763.html, so someone should take a further look at that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.78.32.24 (talk) 03:03, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

That section was added here some 3 years ago, while the above page says "addtime:2010-10-13 15:21:58", thus I believe they've copied WP text. Materialscientist (talk) 03:09, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

The article seems to be stating that bulk tungsten carbide has been used to fashion AP rounds, but I wonder about this.

Tungsten carbide is very brittle. It is a dense material, with density around 15 g/cc, but not nearly as dense as tungsten or depleted uranium, which are in the 18-19 g/cc range. Pure tungsten and the "heavy metal" compositions of cemented tungsten bound with sintered nickelbronze are still very hard, but more malleable and ductile and less prone to shattering on impact with armor. As far as I am aware, "heavy metal" is in common use today in AP projectiles, but tungsten carbide is not.

Not to long ago i watched a video on youtube about the .50 BMG, one of the marines in the video refered to the M-2(?) armor peircing round as having a tungsten carbide core. just a thought.Kyanite 23:59, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Tungsten carbide was a brittle material but that was compared to steel. Much of the armor piercing work was done by Dr. Irwin Rudy of Pacific Hardmetals in Forest Grove, OR. Use of Nickel instead of Cobalt made a much tougher part. Also the way the force is directed has a tremendous effect. I’m not sure a tornado ever forced straw through a board but I do have picture or piece of plywood forced through a tree.

Carbide is extremely strong in compression but weak in tension. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomwalz (talk • contribs) 18:16, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Found a toxicological profile for tungsten made by the U.S. Department of health and human services (august 2005). It talks mainly about the use of tungsten carbide for machining but it also talks about ammunition on pages 22 and 31 I found it here: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp186.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.7.200.196 (talk) 05:38, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

AP rounds cab be capped for ballistic purposes, and also to enhance the penetration of tungsten carbide cores, by prevention of shattering. Hence "APCBC" for armour piercing capped ballistic capped".

Tungsten carbide armour piercing rounds were invented and used long before the Second World War. Some pre-war weapons only used tungsten carbide AP rounds, such as the French mle 37 APX gun of 1937. This weapon was considered a military secret, as its performance so far exceeded the 1930s average. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aforandy (talk • contribs) 12:33, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Use of tungsten carbide rounds by 37mm cannon on Stukas is a somewhat redundant use since standard AP rounds would also be effective against the top profile of all vehicles, armoured or soft. Similarly an ace close support pilot would be able to achieve better result with the less effective round, and of course they didn't restrict their attacks to T-34s.

The choice Germany faced in the late-war period was to use its available tungsten carbide for machine tools used in weapon production, or to fire it off as armour-piercing rounds. They chose the former course, and tungsten carbide rounds, called "AP40" or "Arrowhead" in some German usage, became increasingly rare from 1943 onwards.

Portugal was one of Nazi Germany's few neutral and accessible source of tungsten ore, and even today the national bank is reputed to have in its vaults a few gold bars stamped with the swastika. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aforandy (talk • contribs) 12:41, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

trivia

In other languages tungsten-carbide is called 'vidia' from German expression "vie diamant" (like diamond) - Valdez from Hungary —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.2.192.174 (talk) 13:40, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Toxicity?

Jewelry pieces made primarily of tungsten carbide (and other binding metals) have been available for a while now, but the links to the material safety data on this page suggest that tungsten carbide may be toxic through skin contact. Am I misinterpreting something, or do these hazard warnings apply only to the substance when powdered?

The powder associated with manufacture and grinding carbide is toxic, causing heavy metal poisoning. Once the piece has completed all grinding and polishing it is safe. Tool grade tungsten carbide uses Cobalt to bind the tungsten grains together. Since cobalt is toxic, nickle is used as a binder in tungsten carbide jewelry. R. Duffield

one article - two compounds

We have two interstitial compounds known colloquially as tungsten carbide- but only one article with one chembox. It would be better if this article was split into two separate ones (for WC and W₂C) with a disambiguation page for tungsten carbide. --Axiosaurus (talk) 10:42, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

jewelry

I made a boo-boo on the references, and i don't know how to fix it i was trying to get the jewelry citation to go to http://www.forevermetals.com/jewelry-tungsten-carbide-ring/ because it talks about the cobalt in Tungsten carbide jewelry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.14.209.24 (talk) 03:14, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I do not see the legitimacy of this website. They do not update their information and there are no pictures or proof a validity. Not to mention much of the text is duplicated http://www.trewtungsten.com/ should be cited for the tungsten carbide ring source for he has several patents on it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Greg995 (talk • contribs) 01:35, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Those patents are currently being fought over in court and are highly questionable. There is prior art and it was an obvious concept... Trew Tungsten has not won a single case, although several have been settled for very small sums. Further, I don't see why they should be cited because they may or may not hold a valid patent in one country for one use of one kind of this entire metal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.250.35.158 (talk) 19:06, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Domestic uses cleanup

This section in particular sounds awkward due to the addition of the last paragraph which intentionally conflicts with other information. This info needs to be integrated, and preferably be properly sourced. --Jmeden2000 (talk) 18:47, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Are machine tools solid carbide or coated?

I am honestly unclear whether machine tools are solid carbide or just a coating, perhaps the article should clarify. If I have a small triangular "carbide insert" for a turning tool, is that a solid hunk of tungsten carbide-cobalt composite? If I have a "carbide" endmill, is the whole thing including the shank one big piece of tungsten carbide-cobalt composite? What about a "carbide" saw blade? Are any of these tools made with just a coating of tungsten carbide-cobalt on top of some other material? Or are they available in either coated or solid versions?

Also, how big are the particles of WC in the composite? I would think they must be really small, because carbide tools are sometimes fairly reflective, and big grains would give a more matte appearance.66.92.68.214 (talk) 08:10, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Most of your endmills are C2 solid carbide. Saws can be either solid carbide, or be of steel with carbide 'tips' inserted on each cutting surface. Some endmills are coated with TiN (that gives them a golden yellow color), which will decrease tool wear. Your higher quality endmills are made of micrograin material which has an average grain size of .8 microns. Depending on the application, some endmills may be manufactured with a grain size of .5 microns. Most of the saws that i have seen have had a grain size of 2-5 microns. Saws are generally made from a 6% Co mixture, while endmills are generally made from a 10% cobalt mixture (ie 10%Co, 90%WC). Other elements (refractory carbides) may be added to control grain growth during sintering (Cr3C2,TiC, TaC, etc), but this is usually kept at 5% of the binder (Co) content for endmills...any higher and you run the risk of compromising the Transverse Rupture Strength. R. Duffield

In short: not all cutting tools are solid carbide, not all cutting tools are coated, and not all solid carbide cutting tools are coated. And as I understand, machine tools refer to the equipment that actually makes use of the carbide cutting tools (for example, the lathe for your triangular insert is the machine tool, but the insert is the cutting tool). But to address the other questions:

1. If they're sold as "solid carbide", the cutting tools used in machine tools are almost entirely made of tungsten carbide. Coating is an option you can have to prolong tool life, increase material removal rate etc.
2. If you have a small triangular carbide insert, you probably have some manufacturer's proprietary mix of tungsten, carbon, cobalt and their special spices (in less than 1% amounts) which has been pressed together in a mold, sintered, ground if required, and coated if desired.
3. If you have a carbide end mill (and it's not a "brazed carbide end mill") the whole thing including the shank one big tungsten carbide rod that's been formed to your specification.
4. I do not know of any tools with "just a coating of tungsten carbide on top". Knowing how these tools are made, I can't imagine a cost-effective way to deposit tungsten carbide onto HSS (the alternative to carbide). Your standard coatings for carbide tools are things like TiN, TiCN, TiAlN, AlCrN, AlTiN, DLC etc., and you can get real fancy with the proprietary blends and colors; but the important thing here is that these coatings are there to improve chip evacuation with a lower coefficient of friction than the tool material itself, increase temperature resistance (with faster chip evacuation and creating a barrier between workpiece and the tool), and decrease the amount of wear the tool takes. It would be more economical to just use the existing coating systems than to take what is one of the densest metals in the world and powder it to below 1 micron to try to deposit a thin film of it over a steel drill tip.
5. Since the size of the particles has already been answered, I'll just elaborate and say that for high precision technologies, sizes below 0.2 microns is not uncommon. And don't be fooled by the reflective appearance of the tools - in the industry that is just called a "bright" surface finish and it can be achieved on large grains just as easily and is no indication of the grain size. The only way to truly tell is to take samples under a microscope, and destructive material tests for a more thorough analysis. Ermendrud (talk) 17:17, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Is it alloy?

--Dojarca (talk) 07:12, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

No, but it may be nonstoichiometric. Materialscientist (talk) 07:21, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

WC structure drawing has five carbon bonds?

In the structural drawing of WC or tungsten carbide, it looks to me as if there are five bonds from each carbon (gray atoms in drawing), which stands at odds with all of my learning that carbon has a total of four bonds per atom. What gives? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.147.68.236 (talk) 18:25, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

cunfusing

The article doesn't make much distinction between cemented carbide and tungsten carbide. Much of the uses section on;y relates to cemented carbide but is presented as though it is about tungsten carbide. I think people are likely to be confused about this, as I am/was. Furthermore, the picture in the infobox is of (I think...) cemented carbide, not TC. Efcmagnew (talk) 17:20, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me that the distinction between tungsten carbide and cemented carbide should be made much more clear in this article. As far as I am aware, monolithic tungsten carbide is almost never used to make anything, only cemented carbide is used. The applications section of the article does not seem to make this distinction clear enough, with the Sports usage and Surgical instruments ignoring it entirely. Yellowy cake (talk) 21:59, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Hardness Error in Opening Paragraph

Silicon Carbide is NOT harder than Tungsten Carbide.

I work at a place that makes Pump Seals for the nuclear industry - We polish many different materials using many different abbrasives. I can tell you for sure that SILICON CARBIDE WILL NOT CUT TUNGSTEN CARBIDE. SC lapping paste and SC 'sand'paper will not scratch our WC parts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.252.152.202 (talk) 19:28, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Various sources on the internet show that SC is equal to or harder than WC.... but I'm rubbing a piece or SC emmery cloth from Germany on a polished WC part right now and its not putting a single scratch on it. I've also tried cutting WC with a few differnt brands of SC lapping paste and it doesn't cut the WC parts either. Only diamond works for us. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.252.152.202 (talk) 19:34, 26 August 2011 (UTC) Yes that is true, silicon carbide is somewhat harder than tungsten carbide, silicon carbide has about 2400 compare to tungsten carbide of 1800 in Knoop hardness, so as to exclude the possibility of cutting. But in addition to diamond cutting or "shaping" tungsten carbide, it is done with cubic boron nitride or PCBN form of boron nitride.

Reference 10, ISBN not found

Hi, is the ISBN for reference 10 really correct. The reference is Introduction to Solid State Physics by Charles Kittel (7th ed)

I found this ISBN for it: ISBN-10: 0471111813 ISBN-13: 978-0471111818

And could not find the listed ISBN. Please check if this needs correction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.237.61.129 (talk) 08:24, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

wp:sofixit - Shajure (talk) 13:53, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

The reference is to the Kittel (7th edition) Wiley -India edition- the isbn is correct (isbn-10 81-265-1045-5) - unless there is a misprint in my copy! Axiosaurus (talk) 12:18, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Name

Since WC is understood in way too many countries to mean water closet (i.e. restroom, washroom, toilet, loo, "John", can, crapper) and since CW as "continuous wave" has largely fallen out of use and since, even on Wikipedia, WC (at this moment) doesn't even mention tungsten carbide, shouldn't we change the name to "CW" (and then update the cw page to also link here)?

Think of how many students would be spared the subliminal urge to go to the toilet during metallurgy or manufacturing courses.

Also, "TC" is not a good name either, since T is not a chemical symbol (Tungsten is called Wolfram in chem-speak).

At any rate, I don't have time to argue or change it myself, so you guys can discuss it and change it when you have time.

70.54.202.152 (talk) 17:36, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Given that it's the actual chemical formula, it's valid to remain as-is. — ¾-10 23:15, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

How can it be inorganic if it has carbon in it?

Isn't that the definition of organic? ScienceApe (talk) 01:05, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

This material is not composed of carbon rings and carbon acts much like a metal in alloys in it. djb — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.88.88.91 (talk) 05:10, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Guitar Slides

After reading the page about tungsten carbide guitar slides I'm questioning if this an important use of this material. The main advantage seems to be their hardness which prevents them from beeing scratched by the steel wound guitar strings. Why is this significant? 77.13.106.88 (talk) 02:41, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Suggested Addition: Cost

Currently $42/kg for 3-4 micron powder, http://www.metal-pages.com/metalprices/tungsten/ Majermike (talk) 02:55, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I'd advise not adding the cost. Tungsten itself might tend to be a bit more stable than other commodities in the medium-term but actually the cost tungsten carbide is highly dependent on cobalt. Cobalt has always been an erratic commodity due to its limited sourcing, and with the advent of smartphones and now EVs, there is no way we can keep the price on this wiki remotely accurate. Ermendrud (talk) 17:22, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

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Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Tungsten carbide/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

right, all i wana do is find out if i were to commission a tungsten carbide knife, would it cut the mustard. i was informed that it's "hardness" would be around 81 HRA. as you can tell, i'm not too aux fait with this malarky. any help? Regards Joe

Last edited at 01:19, 3 July 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 09:21, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

History

Could some informed person improve the historical part of this article so as to indicate the approximate dates when some of the uses discussed became common? Thanks. Mark K. Jensen (talk) 18:16, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

The problem is that would require some published source to say the use had become common... which just isn't... commonly done. Usually there will be publishing when it becomes possible... then maybe when it is practical... then sometimes it will be mentioned more often but that won't let us say "and it became common by x date". Just generally.Shajure (talk) 22:10, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Electric resistivity and speed of sound in the box?

What is electric resistivity of Tungsten carbide? I have seen various figures from https://www.azom.com/properties.aspx?ArticleID=1203 (417 - 1000 nΩ⋅m) and http://www.wesltd.com/divisions/hardmetal/html/Tungsten-carbide.html (160 - 200 nΩ⋅m , depending on binder content; units on that site are in μΩ⋅cm). In the text of the article I see a figure of 200 nΩ⋅m, which is a bit weird). http://www.sapub.org/global/showpaperpdf.aspx?doi=10.5923/j.cmaterials.20120203.04 show some alloys with Cu, but I couldn't decipher units used. http://www.matweb.com/search/DataSheet.aspx?MatGUID=e68b647b86104478a32012cbbd5ad3ea&ckck=1 shows other values too (530 - 800 nΩ⋅m). http://www.carbideprocessors.com/pages/carbide-parts/tungsten-carbide-properties.html says it is similar to tool steel and carbon steel. http://www.goodfellow.com/E/Tungsten-Carbide-Cobalt.html says 20 nΩ⋅m ("Volume resistivity?"). https://www.generalcarbide.com/assets/pdf/GCDesignerGuide.pdf page 16 says 200 nΩ⋅m. It is very confusing. 2A02:168:F609:0:C38D:4039:F7BF:4885 (talk) 08:15, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Borium?

Borium redirects here without explanation. In other languages, borium is the name for boron so this may be worth explaining. I expected to find some words on this in the Naming section, but there is nothing. What to write? Rp (talk) 06:44, 16 January 2024 (UTC)