2009 R&D 100 Winner
The Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, and Smith Technology, Smith International Inc., Houston, Texas, have introduced a major change to an existing drilling and machining tool material—cemented tungsten carbide—that can tackle some of the toughest infrastructure tasks. Double Cemented Tungsten Carbide dramatically improves the fracture toughness of this material and tools without sacrificing wear resistance. Conventional cemented tungsten carbide (WC-Co) often suffers from catastrophic brittle failures because of low fracture toughness. The risk of this happening with the new carbide is greatly reduced. Double Cemented Tungsten Carbide is a hybrid matrix composite containing large granules made of regular WC-Co. The term “double cemented” is a reference to the WC-Co reinforcement granule, which is itself a composite.
Technology
Tungsten Carbide material
Developers
Univ. of Utah
Smith Technology, Smith International Inc.
