The use of silicon powder in diamond segment

Silicon powder is a material that is often added in the production process of diamond segment. There are two kinds of silica fume that people often say. The first is micro-silica fume, the scientific name is silica fume, which is produced by collecting and processing the soot that escapes with the exhaust gas during the high-temperature smelting of industrial silicon and ferrosilicon in industrial electric furnaces.
In the escaping soot, the SiO2 content accounts for about 90% of the total soot, the particle size is very small. Because the average particle size is almost nanometer level, it is called silicon powder. This type of microsilica is not used in the production of diamond segments. In the production process of the segment, the second type is mostly used, also known as metal silicon powder. Metal silicon, also known as crystalline silicon or industrial silicon, is as an additive for non-ferrous alloys for the main use. Silicon metal is a product smelted from quartz and coke in an electric furnace. The main component silicon content is about 98% (in recent years, 99.99% of Si content is also included in metal silicon), and the remaining impurities are iron, aluminum, calcium, etc., this type of metal silicon powder is widely used in the production process of diamond segment.

Metal silicon powder is added to the segment. Linxing Diamond Tools has found through long-term testing that silicon powder brings the following changes to the segment:

1: The high temperature resistance of the segment is improved.
During the test, it was found that the high temperature resistance of the diamond segment at the same sintering temperature has obvious changes during the cutting process with or without adding silicon powder. Specifically, in the same water-deficient cutting environment, the heat resistance of the diamond segment with silicon powder is better under the same cutting conditions. There are three aspects to compare the stability of the cutting segment, the deformation of the cutting segment and the ability to cut stone. In these aspects, the segment with metal silicon powder has obvious heat resistance performance, and the performance of thermal expansion coefficient is also higher than that of diamond segment without metal silicon powder. So at present, in terms of ingredients for dry-cut laser sheets, metal silicon powder is one of the matrix materials that must be added.

2: The anti-oxidation ability of the segment is enhanced.
Metal silicon powder reacts quickly with the surrounding oxygen in a high-temperature environment, and this reaction reduces the intensity of the oxidation reaction of other metals in metal bond. The direct benefit is that the stability of the segment is enhanced, and during the welding process, the firmness of the welding is also increased.

3: The wear resistance of the segment is enhanced.
Wear resistance is an important parameter of the segment, especially in the process of cutting highly abrasive stone. The wear resistance determines the service life of the segment, and the increase in service life can reduce the processing cost of stone. Comparing the input of raw materials with the actual output, during the long-term testing process, Linsing’s engineers found that adding a part of metal silicon powder to the diamond segment can properly improve the service life of the segment, and it is best to keep this range within 5-20%.

4: The corrosion resistance of the segment is enhanced.
After the silicon powder is added to the diamond segment, because the silicon powder has high corrosion resistance and strong oxidation resistance, oxidation and corrosion will often not occur on the surface of the diamond segment.

5: The hardness of the diamond segment increases.
Different from the wear resistance of the third article, after adding silicon powder to the diamond segment, the hardness of the segment will obviously increase, and the cutting strength will increase. For example, in the process of cutting hard granite, if the bond of the segment is obviously deformed or consumed too quickly, it is advisable to add some metal silicon powder to improve the wear resistance and hardness of the segment, so that the bond of the diamond segment has the ability to cut this hard granite stone.
6: The bending resistance and bending resistance of the blade added with silicon powder become weaker.
After adding silicon powder, the segment will also have some negative performance. For example, the bending strength of the segment becomes weaker. Simply put, the impact resistance is weakened. The direct performance is that the segment becomes hard and brittle, and even breaks under strong impact.

7: After adding silicon powder, the content of other metal powders will be appropriately reduced due to the change in the ratio of the diamond segment. In terms of overall performance, more uncertainty emerged. Long-term testing is required to ensure that the holding force of the metal bond powers is not affected or is enhanced, which makes the diamond segment more uncertain.