Sintered Diamond Compacts with a Cobalt Binder

Diamond powder can be successfully cemented with cobalt. At 62 kilobars the sintering occurs over the temperature range from 1570° to 1610°C. The maximum microhardness of the compact (> 3000 kilograms per square millimeter on the Knoop scale) is obtained with a mixture of 20 percent cobalt (by volume) and a diamond particle size of 1 to 5 micrometers.