Summer Internship - New hard-materials in cemented carbide

At Seco Tools we develop and offer advanced products and solutions that makes metal cutting easier. We work together with our customers to share experiences and solve technical challenges – aiming towards the future of manufacturing.
Background and Purpose
Composite materials consisting of a hard ceramic phase, traditionally tungsten carbide, and a ductile metallic binder phase, most often Cobalt, are generally called hard metals or cemented carbide. Cemented carbides are manufactured through a powder metallurgy processing route - wet milling, spray draying, compaction, and sintering.
Cemented carbide has an attractive combination of properties with high hardness and toughness. To tailor the properties needed for the application e.g. grain size and binder content can be adjusted. Furthermore, additional elements and/or phases can be added to improve the desired properties in new material designs.
Your mission
In this project, you will be investigating new material designs for cemented carbides to further improve the properties of the cemented carbide by adding or replacing different raw materials. In detail, you will investigate the influence of different alloying elements to tailor the desired properties. Within a given test space, design a test matrix, manufacture test batches of material, with our production and innovation lab. Analyse the material with methods e.g., light optical microscopy and electron microscopy.
Design and set up a test plan, in the material design window to investigate.
Evaluate the material and analyse phases / microstructure of the cemented carbide.

Finally, the work will be presented both orally and in writing.
Your profile
You are preferably a master’s student within the field of Materials Science, Physics or Chemistry. Previous experience of lab work is meritorious. Since we are a global business, you have excellent communication skills in English, both in writing and in speaking.
Excent
The summer technology period includes up to 12 weeks, starting early June, 2023.
The location is Fagersta.
Our Seco culture
Seco employees across the globe share our family spirit, along with a passion for our customers and a personal commitment to ensure success in everything we do. For us, it’s also clear that our diversities form an outstanding foundation for achieving great results. Visit our LinkedIn or Facebook to get to know us and our products further.
Contact information
For more information please contact:
Jesper Stjernberg, supervisor, jesper.stjernberg@secotools.com, +46 (0) 70 294 80 90
Carolin Åkesson, Recruiter, carolin.akesson@sandvik.com, +46 (0)70-616 24 51
Application
Please send your application no later than February 15th, 2023. Job ID: R0050335