With the increasing cost of global mineral resource development and fluctuations in market demand, the price of tungsten carbide (Tungsten Carbide) raw materials has shown a clear upward trend in recent years. For industrial users like us who rely on tungsten carbide products, how to maintain key properties such as wear resistance and hardness of products while reducing procurement budgets amid rising costs is directly related to the competitiveness of enterprises. Next, I will introduce 3 practical cost-saving methods from two core directions: material selection and structural design optimization, helping you optimize costs without sacrificing performance.
1. Adopt Recycled Tungsten Carbide Powder
The most direct way to reduce costs is to start from the source of raw materials. Tungsten carbide itself is a material with high recycling value. As long as recycled tungsten carbide powder is used reasonably, it can significantly reduce raw material costs while ensuring performance.
1.1 What is Recycled Material?
Simply put, recycled tungsten carbide is powder re-extracted by chemical or physical methods such as the zinc melting process from waste cemented carbide tools, grinding chips, or old parts. Now the recycling process is quite mature, and the performance of purified recycled materials is not much different from that of primary materials.
1.2 Advantages and Applicable Scenarios
- Cost Advantage: The price of recycled materials is usually 20%-30% lower than that of "primary materials" produced from raw ore, which can directly reduce the proportion of raw material costs in finished products, and the money saved in this part is considerable;
- Performance: With the maturity of recycling technology, high-quality recycled powder is very close to primary materials in terms of hardness and compressive strength, which can meet most conventional application requirements;
- Applicability: If your product does not have particularly strict requirements on toughness (such as non-aerospace precision parts), scenarios like wear-resistant floors, ordinary counterweights, or basic wear-resistant parts can fully use recycled materials, which have high cost performance.
2. Promote "Inlaid" Structure Design
In many cases, wear only occurs on a specific surface or part of the product, not the entire product. Making a full tungsten carbide structure is actually a great waste of materials, and the inlaid structure design can accurately solve this waste problem.
2.1 Implementation Method
The specific approach is to use tungsten carbide as the "wear-resistant core" and inlay it on the base of ordinary steel or cast iron. Through welding, mechanical interference connection, or shrink fit, fix the tungsten carbide block on the most wear-prone parts, so as to achieve "wear resistance of the core part and cost control of non-core parts" with full cost performance.
2.2 Cost Comparison Example
| Structure Type | Tungsten Carbide Usage | Production Cost | Performance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full Tungsten Carbide Part | 100% | High | Overall high hardness but brittle |
| Steel Inlaid with Tungsten Carbide | 10% - 30% | Low | Combines toughness of steel and wear resistance of tungsten carbide |
This method can not only directly reduce the usage of tungsten carbide materials and lower costs but also rely on the toughness of steel to avoid overall fragmentation of large tungsten carbide parts due to excessive impact force, which not only improves the safety of use but also extends the service life of the product.
3. Optimize Grade Selection: Choose the Right One, Not the Most Expensive One
Many users have a misunderstanding when purchasing, thinking that products with higher hardness, lower cobalt content, or finer grain size are better. In fact, blindly pursuing high-performance grades will only lead to a significant increase in procurement costs. Selecting grades that accurately match working conditions is the core of cost control.
3.1 Core Optimization Points
- Customization on Demand: If your working condition is only ordinary friction and does not need to withstand high-temperature impact, choosing ordinary grades with medium grain size and moderate cobalt content is sufficient. There is no need to pay extra for unused excess performance;
- Reduce Redundancy: Too high performance indicators mean more complex sintering processes and higher scrap rates during production. These additional production losses will eventually be reflected in the product price. As long as it is reasonably matched according to working condition requirements, this unnecessary cost waste can be avoided.
Summary
In fact, when raw material prices are high, reducing tungsten carbide costs does not need to rely on accepting "low-quality" products. As long as we use recycled materials to reduce initial procurement costs, use inlaid structures to reduce material waste, and avoid premiums for excess performance through accurate selection, we can maintain a healthy profit margin while ensuring production quality.
If you are looking for a low-cost tungsten carbide solution for specific working conditions, don't worry. We can provide you with professional material analysis and structural optimization suggestions.