CHAPTER 23

CUTTING TOOL TECHNOLOGY

Chapter outline
■ Tool Life
■ Tool Failure
■ Tool Materials
■ Tool Geometry
■ Cutting Fluids
Problem statement

■ Due to high forces and high temperatures during machining tool

faces a very harsh environment
■ If cutting forces are too high the tool will fracture
■ If cutting temperatures are too high the tool material soften and
fracture.
■ If neither of these conditions causes the tool to fail, continual
wear of the cutting edge ultimately leads to failure.
Cutting Tool Technology

Two principal aspects:

1. Tool material
– Developing materials that can withstand the forces,
temperatures, and wearing action in the machining process
2. Tool geometry
– optimizing the geometry of the cutting tool for the tool
material and for a given operation
Three Modes of Tool Failure
■ Fracture failure
– Cutting force at the tool point becomes excessive leading to
brittle fracture
■ Temperature failure
– Cutting temperature at the tool point too high causing it to
softens
– Leads to plastic deformation and loss of sharpness
■ Gradual wear
– Gradual wearing of the cutting tool
– Causes loss of tool shape
– Reduction in cutting efficiency
– Acceleration in wearing
 Preferred Mode of Tool Failure:
Gradual Wear
■ Fracture and temperature failures are premature failures and
undesirable
■ Gradual wear is preferred among the three because it leads to the
longest possible use of the tool.
■ Product quality must also considered when attempting to control the
mode of tool failure.
– When tool points fail suddenly during a cut, it causes damage to
work surface.
– Which require rework of the surface or possible scrapping
– This can be avoided by selecting conditions that favor gradual
wearing
– And changing tool before catastrophic failure.
Tool wear and the mechanism
that cause it
Gradual wear occurs at two locations on a tool:
■ Crater wear –
– occurs on top rake face
– consists of a cavity in the rake face of the tool that forms
and grows from the action of the chip sliding against the
surface
– Can be measured by its depth or its area
■ Flank wear
– occurs on flank (side of tool)
– Results from rubbing b/w the newly generated work surface
and the flank face adjacent to the cutting tool
– Measured by the width of the wear band (flank wear land)
Figure 23.1 ‑ Diagram of worn cutting tool, showing the principal
locations and types of wear that occur
Figure 23.2 ‑

(a) Crater wear, and

(b) flank wear on a cemented

carbide tool, as seen through
a toolmaker's microscope

(Courtesy Manufacturing
Technology Laboratory,
Lehigh University, photo by
J. C. Keefe)
Features of flank wear

■ Notch wear
– It occurs because the original work surface is harder
and/or more abrasive than the internal material caused by
work hardening from cold drawing or previous machining.

■ Nose radius wear

– This occurs on the nose radius leading into the end cutting
edge.
Mechanisms that cause wear
■ Abrasion
– hard particles in the work material gouging and removing
small portions of the too
– significant cause of flank wear
■ Adhesion
– When two metals are forced into contact under high pressure
and temperature, adhesion or welding occur between them.
– These conditions are present between the chip and the rake
face of the tool
■ Diffusion
– This is a process in which an exchange of atoms takes place
across a close contact boundary between two materials
(occurs b/w tool chip boundary)
– Tool become depleted of hard particles
– Principle mechanism in crater wear
■ Chemical reactions.
– The high temperatures and clean surfaces at the tool–chip
interface in machining at high speeds can result in
chemical reactions, in particular, oxidation, on the rake
face of the tool. The oxidized layer, being softer than the
parent tool material, is sheared away, exposing new
material to sustain the reaction process.
■ Plastic deformation.
– Another mechanism that contributes to tool wear is plastic
deformation of the cutting edge. The cutting forces acting
on the cutting edge at high temperature cause the edge to
deform plastically, making it more vulnerable to abrasion
of the tool surface. Plastic deformation contributes mainly
to flank wear
TOOL LIFE AND THE
TAYLOR TOOL LIFE
EQUATION
■ As cutting proceeds, the various wear mechanisms result in
increasing levels of wear on the cutting tool.
■ The general relationship of tool wear versus cutting time is
shown in Figure 23.3.
■ Although the relationship shown is for flank wear, a similar
relationship occurs for crater wear.
■ Break-in Period
– sharp cutting edge wears rapidly at the beginning of its use.
– this first region occurs within the first few minutes of cutting.
■ Steady-state wear region
– The break-in period is followed by wear that occurs at a fairly
uniform rate
– In this figure, this region is pictured as a linear function of time,
although there are deviations from the straight line in actual
machining.
■ Failure region
– Finally, wear reaches a level at which the wear rate begins to
accelerate called failure region
– In this cutting temperatures are higher, and the general efficiency
of the machining process is reduced.
– If allowed to continue, the tool finally fails by temperature failure.
Effect of different parameters
on tool wear
■ The slope of the tool wear curve in the steady-state region is
affected by work material and cutting conditions.
■ Harder work materials cause the wear rate (slope of the tool
wear curve) to increase.
■ Increased speed, feed, and depth of cut have a similar effect,
with speed being the most important of the three.
■ If the tool wear curves are plotted for several different cutting
speeds, the results appear as in Figure 23.4.
■ As cutting speed is increased, wear rate increases so the same
level of wear is reached in less time.
Tool life
■ Tool life is defined as the length of cutting time that the tool can be used.
■ Operating the tool until final catastrophic failure is one way of defining
tool life. This is indicated in Figure 23.4 by the end of each tool wear
curve.
■ However, in production, it is often a disadvantage to use the tool until
this failure occurs because of difficulties in resharpening the tool and
problems with work surface quality.
■ As an alternative, a level of tool wear can be selected as a criterion of
tool life, and the tool is replaced when wear reaches that level. A
convenient tool life criterion is a certain flank wear value, such as 0.5
mm (0.020 in), illustrated as the horizontal line on the graph. When each
of the three wear curves intersects that line, the life of the corresponding
tool is defined as ended.
■ If the intersection points are projected down to the time axis, the values
of tool life can be identified.
Taylor Tool Life Equation
■ If the tool life values for the three wear curves in Figure 23.4 are
plotted on a natural log–log graph of cutting speed versus tool
life, the resulting relationship is a straight line as shown in
Figure 23.5.1
■ The discovery of this relationship around 1900 is credited to
F.W. Taylor. It can be expressed in equation form and is called
the Taylor tool life equation:
■ The value of n is relative constant for a given tool material,
whereas the value of C depends on tool material, work material,
and cutting conditions
■ Basically, Eq. (23.1) states that higher cutting speeds result in
shorter tool lives.
■ Relating the parameters n and C to Figure 23.5, n is the slope of
the plot (expressed in linear terms rather than in the scale of the
axes), and C is the intercept on the speed axis. C represents the
cutting speed that results in a 1-min tool life
EXAMPLE 23.1
Tool Life Criteria in
Production
■ Flank wear is the tool life criterion in our previous discussion of
the Taylor equation, this criterion is not very practical in a
factory environment because of the difficulties and time required
to measure flank wear.
■ Following are nine alternative tool life criteria that are more
convenient to use in a production machining operation.
1. Complete failure of the cutting edge (fracture failure, temperature
failure, or wearing until complete breakdown of the tool has occurred).
This criterion has disadvantages, as discussed earlier.
2. Visual inspection of flank wear (or crater wear) by the machine
operator (without a toolmaker’s microscope). This criterion is limited by
the operator’s judgment and ability to observe tool wear with the naked
eye.
3. Fingernail test across the cutting edge by the operator to test for
irregularities.
4. Changes in the sound emitting from the operation, as judged by the
operator.
5. Chips become ribbony, stringy, and difficult to dispose of.
6. Degradation of the surface finish on the work.
7. Increased power consumption in the operation, as measured by a
wattmeter connected to the machine tool.
8. Workpiece count. The operator is instructed to change the tool after a
certain specified number of parts have been machined.
9. Cumulative cutting time. This is similar to the previous workpiece
count, except that the length of time the tool has been cutting is
monitored. This is possible on machine tools controlled by computer; The
computer is programmed to keep data on the total cutting time for each
tool.
Tool Materials

■ Tool failure modes identify the important properties that a tool

material should possess:
– Toughness ‑ to avoid fracture failure a combination of
strength and ductility in the material is required.
– Hot hardness ‑ ability to retain hardness at high
temperatures
– Wear resistance ‑ hardness is the most important property
to resist abrasive wear
High Speed Steel (HSS)
■ Highly alloyed tool steel capable of maintaining hardness at elevated temperatures
better than high carbon and low alloy steels.
■ Its good hot hardness permits tools made of HSS to be used at higher cutting
speeds.
■ One of the most important cutting tool materials
■ Especially suited to applications involving complicated tool geometries, such as
drills, milling cutters, and broaches.
■ These complex shapes are generally easier and less expensive to produce from
unhardened HSS than other tool materials.
■ They can then be heat-treated so that cutting-edge hardness is very good (Rockwell
C 65), whereas toughness of the internal portions of the tool is also good
■ HSS cutters possess better toughness than any of the harder nonsteel tool materials
used for machining, such as cemented carbides and ceramics
■ HSS tools, drills in particular, are often coated with a thin film of titanium nitride
(TiN) to provide significant increases in cutting performance.
■ Physical vapor deposition processes (Section 28.5.1) are commonly used to coat
these HSS tools.
High Speed Steel Composition

■ Two basic grades by the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI)
■ Tungsten‑type, designated T‑ grades contain tungsten (W) as its
principal alloying ingredient.
■ Molybdenum‑type, designated M‑grades
■ Typical alloying ingredients:
– Tungsten and/or Molybdenum
– Chromium and Vanadium
– Carbon, of course
– Cobalt in some grades
■ Typical composition:
– Grade T1 or 18-4-1 HSS IS : 18% W, 4% Cr, 1% V, and 0.9% C
CAST COBALT ALLOYS
■ Cast cobalt alloy cutting tools consist of cobalt, around 40%to
50%; chromium, about 25% to 35%;and tungsten usually 15% to
20%; with trace amounts of other elements.
■ These tools are made into the desired shape by casting in
graphite molds and then grinding to final size and cutting-edge
sharpness.
■ High hardness is achieved as cast, an advantage over HSS,
which requires heat treatment to achieve its hardness.
■ Wear resistance of the cast cobalts is better than high-speed
steel, but not as good as cemented carbide.
■ Toughness of cast cobalt tools is better than carbides but not as
good as HSS.
■ Hot hardness also lies between these two materials.
Cemented Carbides

Cemented carbides (also called sintered carbides) Class of hard tool

material based on tungsten carbide using powder metallurgy
techniques with cobalt (Co) as the binder
■ Two basic types:
1. Non steel cutting grades
2. Steel cutting grades
Cemented Carbides – General
Properties
■ High compressive strength but low‑to‑moderate tensile strength
■ High hardness
■ Good hot hardness
■ Good wear resistance
■ Toughness lower than high speed steel
Non‑steel Cutting Carbide
Grades
■ Used for nonferrous metals and gray cast iron
■ Properties determined by grain size and cobalt content
– As grain size increases, hardness and hot hardness
decrease, but toughness increases
– As cobalt content increases, toughness improves at the
expense of hardness and wear resistance
Steel Cutting Carbide Grades

■ Used for low carbon, stainless, and other alloy steels

– For these grades, TiC are used
– This composition increases crater wear resistance for steel
cutting, but adversely affects flank wear resistance for
non‑steel cutting applications
Cermet

■ Applications of cermet's include high-speed finishing and semi-

finishing of steels, stainless steels, and cast irons.
■ Higher speeds are generally allowed with these tools compared
with steel-cutting carbide grades.
■ Lower feeds are typically used so that better surface finish is
achieved, often eliminating the need for grinding.
Coated Carbides
Cemented carbide insert coated with one or more thin layers of wear
resistant materials, such as TiC, TiN, and/orAl2O3
■ Coating applied by chemical vapor deposition or physical vapor
deposition
■ Coating thickness = 2.5 ‑ 13 m (0.0001 to 0.0005 in)
■ Applications: cast irons and steels in turning and milling operations
Ceramics

Primarily fine‑grained Al2O3, pressed and sintered at high pressures

and temperatures into insert form with no binder
■ Applications: high speed turning of cast iron and steel
■ Not recommended for heavy interrupted cuts (e.g. rough
milling) due to low toughness
■ Al2O3 also widely used as an abrasive in grinding
 Synthetic Diamonds
Sintered polycrystalline diamond (SPD) - fabricated by sintering very fine
grained diamond crystals under high temperatures and pressures into
desired shape with little or no binder
■ Applications: high speed machining of nonferrous metals and abrasive
nonmetals such as fiberglass, graphite, and wood
– Not for steel cutting
Exercise + Numerical

■ Review questions 23.1 to 23.11

■ Numerical
– 23.5
– 23.6
– 23.7
– 23.8
– 23.9
– 23.16
– 23.17
– 23.18
– 23.19