Novel characterisation methods for new hardmetal products
K.P.Mingard and B.Roebuck, National Physical Laboratory, United Kingdom

The drive to produce finer grain sized materials with increased hardness increases the need to accurately characterise the WC powder size, and to understand what the measured size actually represents in complex irregularly shaped particles.  New methods developed at the National Physical Laboratory will be described and related to more conventional measurement techniques.

Increasing use of Ni as a binder in place of Co is driving an increasing need for alternatives to measurement of magnetic properties because of the low magnetic moment of Ni.  Methods for measurement of the electrical resistivity of components will be compared with conventional measurements of magnetic saturation and coercivity.  New insights in to the structure of the binder phase from resistivity are being correlated with these resistivity measurements.