Technology and Engineering Atlas

How Things Are Built
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme

Switch Atlas

Material

Tungsten Carbide

TUNG-sten KAR-bide
Also Known As Carbide
Mechanical Engineering

Tungsten carbide is a dense, extremely hard compound of equal parts tungsten and carbon, first synthesized as a powder by Henri Moissan in 1893. Industrial production of the cemented form, sintered with a cobalt binder, did not begin until roughly 1913 to 1918, after which it became the standard material for cutting tools that must outlast high-speed steel. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Primary Use
Sintered cutting tools that resist abrasion and hold up under heat better than high-speed steel, and armor-piercing ammunition where depleted uranium is unavailable or politically unacceptable. 1
Origin Year
1893 1
Year the powder form was first synthesized by Henri Moissan; the cemented industrial form followed roughly 1913 to 1918.
Classification
Material Class
Ceramic 1
Connections

Associated With

Ballpoint Pen, Inventions
CNC Machining, Methods

Tungsten carbide's extreme hardness makes it the standard cutting-tool and tool-bit material for CNC machining of metal, far outlasting high-speed steel tooling.

Cold Isostatic Press, Inventions
Core Drill, Inventions
Drilling Rig, Inventions
Hot Isostatic Press, Inventions
Machining, Methods
Materials Engineering, Fields
Powder Metallurgy, Methods
Source Powder metallurgy (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Powder Metallurgy, Methods

Cemented tungsten carbide is made by powder metallurgy, sintering carbide powder with a cobalt binder.

Sintering, Methods
Tunnel Boring, Methods
Wire Drawing Machine, Inventions

In Field

Mechanical Engineering, Fields
Sources
1. Tungsten Carbide (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia Foundation
  • Introduction section
    Tungsten carbide powder was first synthesized by Henri Moissan in 1893, and the industrial production of the cemented form started 20 to 25 years later (between 1913 and 1918).
  • Cutting tools for machining section
    Sintered tungsten carbide-cobalt cutting tools are very abrasion resistant and can also withstand higher temperatures than standard high-speed steel (HSS) tools.
  • Nomenclature section
    Colloquially among workers in various industries (such as machining), tungsten carbide is often simply called carbide.
  • material-class sentence
    Tungsten carbide is a dense, extremely hard compound of equal parts tungsten and carbon, first synthesized as a powder by Henri Moissan in 1893.
  • In Group: Steel and Hard Carbide Materials, Lead paragraph
    Tungsten carbide (chemical formula: WC) is a carbide containing equal parts of tungsten and carbon atoms.
View the Source
Powder metallurgy (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Powder Metallurgy, Introduction
Quote, Associated With: Powder Metallurgy, Introduction
A very important product of this type is tungsten carbide. Tungsten carbide is used to cut and form other metals and is made from tungsten carbide particles bonded with cobalt.
View the Source

Take a Related Quiz

Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.