CRACKING OF CEMENTED CARBIDE SURFACES IN MECHANICAL SEALS

Cemented carbide is very often utilized as the rubbing material for me chanical seals. A disadvantage of using cemented carbides is that nume rous shallow radial cracks are generated on the rubbing surfaces. It h as been considered that the cause for such crack generation is thermal shock. Various factors affecting the occurrence of cracking are discu ssed based on experimental results. From these results, it has been fo und that cracking is markedly influenced by the circumferential tensil e residual stress rather than thermal shock.