1. CIEFMA-Departament de Ciència dels Materials i Enginyeria Metal.lúrgica, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, EEBE—Campus Diagonal Besòs, Barcelona 08019, Spain </br>2. Barcelona Research Center in Multiscale Science and Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona 08019, Spain
Dr. Luis Llanes
1. CIEFMA-Departament de Ciència dels Materials i Enginyeria Metal.lúrgica, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, EEBE—Campus Diagonal Besòs, Barcelona 08019, Spain </br>2. Barcelona Research Center in Multiscale Science and Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona 08019, Spain
Fracture toughness is one the most important parameters for design applications and performance assessment of WC-Co cemented carbides (hardmetals). Different from hardness, fracture toughness is commonly a property more difficult to evaluate, particularly in brittle materials. A large number of different testing methods have been introduced to evaluate toughness of hardmetals, but in general all of them have either theoretically debatable issues or important experimental difficulties. In this study, three different fracture toughness testing methodologies are investigated: three-point bending on Chevron notched specimen (Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft