Design and synthesis of a novel ceramic coating-like tool material.

A novel ceramic coating-like (CCL) structure was proposed for preparing a potential ceramic cutting tool material. The influence of critical factors, including the material composition, composition content and surface layer thickness, on the residual stress was analyzed by the finite element method (FEM). Under the condition of the optimized parameters, the compressive stress generated on the surface layer of the CCL tool material ranged from −163 MPa to −248 MPa. Based on the obtained results, a (Ti,W)C/Al 2 O 3 +SiC CCL tool material was prepared by vacuum hot-pressing sintering, indicating the residual compressive stress (−122.3 MPa) of the surface layer. Compared with the performance of homogeneous cermet materials, the surface hardness and flexural strength of the CCL tool materials were increased by 46.58% and 37.76%, respectively. Moreover, the SEM imaging results of the sample surface and fracture morphology and the energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analysis results showed that the dense ceramic surface and phase interfacial transition layer were formed with a uniform gradient distribution and without defects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]