Design and application of a novel water-atomized pre-alloyed powder for diamond wire saw

Abstract A novel water-atomized pre-alloyed (WAPA) powder (named as YA508) with multi-element of Fe-Co-Cu-Sn-Ni for diamond wire saw was designed and prepared in this paper. The powder is composed of the immiscible separated structures of the minor copper(Cu)-rich phase dispersed around the major iron-rich phase. It is found that the Cu-rich phase can act as ‘pinning barriers’ at interfaces of powder particles to impede the coarsening and growth of the Fe-rich phase between powder particles, avoiding the occurrence of hard structure with excessive wear resistance during high-temperature sintering process. As a result, a refined sintered matrix with good strength and synchronous wear rate with diamond was obtained and the sharpness of diamond wire saw was effectively improved. The physical/chemical characteristics of YA508 alloy were systematically studied by means of several testing techniques.