Diamond impregnated parts are made by mixing together diamond particles and carefully selected metal powders that are sintered. The sintering process produces a hard and wear resistant matrix with the diamond particles uniformly and firmly embedded in the structure to produce either a cutting action or extreme wear resistance.
Diamond impregnated parts that can be varied considerably by appropriate selection of the type, size and quantity (concentration) of diamond particles. These diamond particles can be single crystal synthetic (coated and un-coated) natural or TSP diamond. Together with the exact composition of the metal powder this variation of diamond particle content can engineer very precise properties in the part. Diamond impregnates are manufacture in graphite moulds thereby allowing many sizes and shape of parts to be routinely manufactured. These parts are amenable to brazing, matrix bit sintering and other commonly used methods for fabrication of down-hole tools.
Diamond impregnates can be used as primary cutting elements in impregnated diamond bits, gauge pads in all types of fixed bits, depth of cut controllers on fixed bits and tiles on stabilisers.
