Quick introduction: Mining and Offshore

Super-hard, wear-resistant diamond ceramics

© Fraunhofer IKTS
Pumpengehäuse (SICcast Mineralguß GmbH) mit einer Innenauskleidung aus superharter Diamantkeramik.

Together with partners from the Fraunhofer AdvanCer Alliance, the Fraunhofer IKTS develops super-hard, wear- and corrosion-resistant diamond ceramics for components subject to wear, such as pump components, pipe segments or nozzles.

In contrast to commercial diamond materials, these new diamond ceramics can be produced cost-effectively and in complex geometries using conventional ceramic technologies – on the one hand as compact components and on the other hand as 300 to 500 µm thick layers in highly stressed component areas. The diamond preform is infiltrated with liquid silicon. During infiltration, a three-dimensional framework is formed in which the diamond is chemically bonded. This SiC bond not only achieves strengths of 450 to 500 MPa, but also very high corrosion resistance. In addition, tribological studies prove that the wear resistance of the developed diamond ceramics is higher by a factor of 10 than that of commercial boron carbide materials and that they exhibit wear behavior similar to that of extremely hard polycrystalline diamond (PCD).