STAINLESS STEEL WITH DIAMONDS

Adding diamonds to regular materials, and especially to metallic alloys is an exciting task, dealt with by numerous researchers, all over the world. The rewards of such compound materials are potentially high, by exhibiting improved and sometimes surprizing properties.

The literature about non-ferrous alloys with diamonds is abundant, with still lots of interesting issues to improve.

On the other hand, ferrous alloys, with their high diffusivity of carbon and high sintering temperatures, have deterred many researcher to even approach this goal. Our group decided to affront this formidable task, clearly understanding its challenging demand.

The solutions implemented to by-pass the thermodynamic barriers were ingeniously simple and effective, resulting in thin (1.0 – 0.3 mm.) sheets, with 10-15vol.% of diamonds.

Although there is still a long way to go, we can show that our approach is valid and poses a good new starting point for further advancement in this direction, being the first in trying to deal with this goal.