Tribology International 66 (2013) 7282

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Tribology International
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/triboint

Tribological behaviour of Ti6Al4V and Inconel718 under dry and cryogenic

conditionsApplication to the context of machining with carbide tools
C. Courbon a,n, F. Pusavec c, F. Dumont b, J. Rech b, J. Kopac c
a

Universit de Lyon, CNRS, Ecole Centrale de Lyon, LTDS UMR5513, F-69134, France
Universit de Lyon, CNRS, Ecole Nationale d'Ingnieurs de Saint-Etienne, LTDS UMR5513, F-42023, France
c
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Askerceva 6, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
b

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 6 November 2012
Received in revised form
11 April 2013
Accepted 15 April 2013
Available online 22 April 2013

This paper aims at improving the understanding of cryogenic assistance in machining Ti6Al4V and
Inconel718 with carbide tools. It especially intends to investigate the cooling and/or lubrication
capabilities of a nitrogen jet under extreme contact conditions using a dedicated tribometer. Whereas
neither liquid nor gas nitrogen is able to decrease friction coefcient and adhesion on Ti6Al4V, it is
proved to be efcient on Inconel718 with a prevailing effect of the liquid phase. In both cases, applying
gas nitrogen already decreases the amount of heat transmitted to the pin but this can be drastically
enhanced by using liquid nitrogen. Finally, this work provides quantitative data regarding friction
coefcient under dry and cryogenic conditions that can be implemented in numerical cutting models.
& 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Friction
Heat transfer
Cryogenic conditions
Adhesion

1. Introduction
Superalloys, such as nickel and titanium based alloys, are usually
employed in the manufacture of strategic and high-added value
components, especially for aerospace, aircraft, defence, or orthopaedic. Several specic properties such as high strength, resistance to
chemical degradation and wear resistance make them well suited for
service in extreme environments and particularly attractive in high
temperature applications. However their ability to maintain these
properties at elevated temperatures severely hinders the machinability of these alloys, thus they are generally referred to as difcultto-cut alloys [1].
It is claimed that in cutting, due to their low thermal conductivity
combined to a high chemical reactivity and adhesion with tool
materials [2], temperature at the toolwork material interfaces seriously increases, and drastically affects tool wear [3,4]. As a consequence, an effective high speed cutting application for these alloys
cannot be reached due to the extremely high thermal loads applied
on the tool material. Moreover, even if the trend is to move towards
dry or near-dry cutting in order to reduce the consumption of oil
based cooling lubrication uids (CLF) [5], the latter cannot be
completely avoided in the case of the mentioned materials. These
materials are thus still mainly machined under ooding conditions
with the known associated problems regarding costs and their
effectiveness [6]. Nevertheless, conventional oil-based CLFs are found

Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 6 86 94 78 88; fax: +33 4 77 43 75 39.

E-mail address: cedric.courbon@free.fr (C. Courbon).

0301-679X/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.triboint.2013.04.010

to be limited in terms of decreasing high cutting temperature,

increasing tool-life, reducing machining costs and improving environmental/social sustainability.
In order to keep increasing the machining performance and
replace conventional CLFs, different alternative cooling/lubrication methods are being promoted such as vegetable oils [7,8], high
pressure jet assisted machining [9] or palm oil MQL [10], the key
issue still being to dissipate the energy dissipated in cutting and
reduce the use of non-environmentally friendly CLFs. During the
last ten years, cryogenic machining has been largely developed
to improve the cutting tool life and has been mostly applied
in machining of heat resistant superalloys [1115]. Despite the
numerous ndings in this eld, it is still questionable if injecting a
cryogenic uid may be able (i) to penetrate deeply in the contact
zone according to the high contact stresses especially reported in
the sticking zone [16], (ii) to decrease the interfacial temperature
by a macroscopic cooling since the interface temperature depends
mainly on the frictional behaviour, or (iii) to reduce friction.
An important uncertainty clearly remains about the action of a
cryogenic uid and especially regarding its cooling and/or lubrication capabilities. To the knowledge of the authors, it seems that
very few scientic papers have reported the inuence of cryogenic
conditions on the frictional behaviour between Ti6Al4V and
cutting tool materials such as carbide or coated carbide [17,18],
and no available study emphasizing on Inconel718 under suitable
contact conditions. It is rather obvious that additional work has to
be conducted in order to answer this question and to assess the
inuence of cryogenic conditions on fundamental tribological
variables such as friction coefcient, heat transfer and material

C. Courbon et al. / Tribology International 66 (2013) 7282

transfer. To this end, it is above all necessary to choose the most

appropriate tribometer.
In this framework, the purpose of the present paper is to
characterise the inuence of a cryogenic uid from a tribological
point of view using a dedicated tribometer. Ti6Al4V and Inconel718
are concerned, respectively, with uncoated and TiN coated carbide
pins which are standard cutting tool materials for such alloys. This
study particularly focuses on extreme contact conditions, consistent
with those encountered in machining. In the following paragraphs,
Section 2 presents an overview of the problem in order to highlight
the main ndings from the literature and how the tribological
behaviour has been mainly investigated under these specic conditions. After a description of the experimental approach in Section 3,
evidences of how a liquid or gas phase cryogenic uid can interact
with the contact are then advanced in Section 4 for the Ti6Al4V and
in Section 5 as for the Inconel718. A discussion is then tackled in
Section 6, followed by the conclusions in Section 7.

2. Brief state-of-the-art
2.1. Contribution of cryogenic applications when machining
superalloys
Nitrogen is mostly concerned in cryogenic applications and
usually liqueed by cooling to 196 1C (liquid nitrogen LN). It is a
safe, non-combustible, and non-corrosive gas. LN quickly evaporates, leaving no residues possibly contaminating the machined
part, chips, machine tool, or operator, thus eliminating disposal
costs. From a general point of view, cryogenic machining could
help to machine parts faster, with higher quality, increased
machining performance, and reduced overall cost [19]. Some
potential benets of cryogenic machining are

Considerably reduced friction coefcient on the toolchip

interface [12,17].

LN applied locally to the cutting edge is superior to emulsion in

lowering the cutting temperature [11,20].

Increased tool-life due to lower abrasion and chemical wear

[2022].

Increased material removal rate with no increase in toolwear

and with reduced cutting tool changeover cost, resulting in

higher productivity [14].
Improved machined part surface quality by preventing mechanical and chemical degradations of the machined surface [23].

More specically, when machining a titanium alloy, Hong et al.

[11] reported a considerable increase in tool life up to ve times
longer than with conventional emulsion at a speed of 2.5 m/s and
three times at 1.5 m/s with uncoated carbide tools. They especially
used an optimised injection system consisting of a micro-nozzle
formed between the chip breaker and the tool rake face and
assisted by a secondary nozzle for ank cooling. The results
presented by Wang et al. [13] are in agreement with the previous
ones and showed an increase by more than ve folds compared to
emulsion cooling at 2.2 m/s. In the same study, authors also
investigated the benets of cryogenic machining when turning
Inconel718 with uncoated carbide tools and observed a 30%
reduction in ank wear at 5.2 m/s. In both the cases, a decrease
in tool wear led to a better surface nish. Klocke et al. [15]
reported that the use of liquid nitrogen improves tool life during
Ti6Al4V machining, but does not inuence chip formation from a
macroscopic point of view. They explain this improvement by a
macroscopic cooling of all the components (cutting tool, chip,
workpiece). On the contrary, Hong et al. [12] observed lower feed
force in parallel to an increase of the cutting force in turning of

73

Ti6Al4V. They suggest a cold strengthening of titanium and a

decrease of the friction coefcient due to a reduced temperature at
the interface. Unfortunately this reduction of interfacial temperature is assumed and has not been experimentally measured.
2.2. Tribological characterisation under cryogenic conditions
The most practical approach is to use the cutting process itself
to evaluate an average macroscopic value of friction coefcient on
the rake face. This method has been selected by several authors for
titanium alloys [2426] and more especially by Hong et al. [12] to
characterise the inuence of cryogenic assistance. The main drawback is that neither the inuence of the edge radius (ploughing
effect) nor the contact with the ank face is taken into account as
cutting tests are only able to provide macroscopic data. Analytical
or numerical models can be employed to extract the part which is
of interest but both usually require strong assumptions on the
constitutive model of the work material. Applying a cryogenic uid
certainly affects its thermo-mechanical behaviour and very few
studies have been performed to investigate this aspect in detail.
The commonly used constitutive models such as Johnson and
Cook's [27] or Zerilli and Armstrong [28] are probably not able to
predict the actual behaviour at these low temperatures, leading to
large uncertainties and erroneous extrapolations.
Moreover, an average friction coefcient is often considered on
the rake face [11], whereas it strongly varies along the contact
length owing to the high sliding velocity gradient [29] and therefore has to depend on this local parameter. These observations
make very difcult the extraction of reliable data on friction from
cutting tests only and encourage the community to look into
different approaches.
A better understanding of the frictional phenomena at the
toolwork material interface can only be done by means of a
dedicated tribometer, independent of any cutting process, and
able to simulate similar tribological conditions (pressure, temperature, velocity) as those occurring along the toolwork material
interfaces.
The common way to measure a friction coefcient consists in
using a pin-on-disc set-up, corresponding to a close tribosystem
in which the pin always rubs on the same surface [30]. For
example, El-Tayed et al. [18] investigated the dry and cryogenic
frictional behaviour of titanium alloys against tungsten carbide
using this type of set-up. They came up with different expressions
connecting the friction coefcient with the applied load, sliding
velocity and sliding time. These data are however difcult to
implement in machining as normal forces were restricted to 23 N
(pin cross section 5  5 mm2), sliding speeds to 1 m/s and conducted in a closed contact. On the contrary, in cutting, the work
material is only once in contact with the cutting tool, either on the
rake face or on the ank face, which implies that the so-called
open tribosystems should only be used. With this in mind and to
overcome the previously mentioned weaknesses, Hedenquist et al.
[31] proposed several open tribometers. Their capabilities have
been considerably improved by Claudin et al. [32]. The efciency
of this tribometer (Fig. 1) to characterise friction coefcients at the
toolwork material interfaces has been proved several times and
more details regarding the principle can be found in Refs. [3335].

3. Experimental approach
3.1. Experimental set-up
The work material is simulated through a cylindrical bar of
Ti6Al4V or Inconel718 alloy. Ti6Al4V used for this study has been
supplied in a quenched and annealed version. It is characterised by

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C. Courbon et al. / Tribology International 66 (2013) 7282

Fig. 1. Detailed description of the tribometer: (a,b) pin on bar contact conguration, (c) cryogenic delivery system and nozzle oriented in front of the friction pin and (d,e)
instrumentation of the pin holder [32,40].

a duplex microstructure composed by primary grains (hexagonal

close-packed structure) surrounded by transformed grains (body
centre cubic structure).
Inconel718 is hot rolled, solution-treated and aged. It contains
larger volume fractions of strengthening precipitates and refractory elements than conventional superalloys, dispersed in a face
centred cubic austenitic matrix.
Cutting tools are simulated through pins with a spherical
geometry and made of cemented carbide with a similar grade as
those used for cutting tools (10% Co90% WC). Pins have been
coated with a 4 m thickness TiN layer deposited by Physical
Vapor Deposition (PVD) when Inconel718 has been concerned but

kept uncoated when investigating the TiAl6V4. In order to eliminate the potential inuence of surface roughness, pins have been
polished to reach a low surface roughness Ra o 0:3 m which is
coherent with a typical surface roughness on a nely ground
carbide cutting tool. Each pin is maintained by an instrumented
pin-holder (Fig. 1d and e). The pin-holder is xed onto a dynamometer in order to provide the macroscopic normal Fn and
tangential force Ft (Fig. 1e) and is tted with a thermistor (Fig. 1d).
Concerning the bar, after each friction test, a cutting tool
refreshes the surface ploughed by the pin. A belt nishing
operation is also performed in order to obtain a very low surface
roughness Ra0:1 m and a constant surface for each test.

C. Courbon et al. / Tribology International 66 (2013) 7282

Each friction test lasts approximately 10 s and it has been

replicated three times in order to estimate the uncertainty.
3.2. Extracted data
The apparent friction coefcient app is provided by the ratio
between the tangential Ft and the normal Fn forces in
app

Ft
Fn

The term apparent friction coefcient or macroscopic friction

coefcient is used since it differs signicantly from the local
friction coefcient induced by adhesion at the pinwork material
interface (Fig. 1a). Indeed the macroscopic forces measured by the
tribometer include on one hand adhesive phenomena, that are
affected by the material properties such as hardness, chemical
reactivity, asperities, and on the other hand plastic deformation of
the work material, which cannot be neglected under such severe
contact conditions (up to Fn of 1000 N). The work conducted by
Bowden and Tabor [36] proposes a simple decomposition of these
contributions
app adh plast

where app is the apparent friction coefcient, adh the adhesive

part and plast the plastic deformation part. Of course, the major
hypothesis of this model is that a relative movement exists
between the two materials, i.e. no static adhesive layer should
be present at a smaller scale in the interface. Based on this
assumption, it is possible to extract both the adhesive and plastic
parts from the apparent friction coefcient, based on an analytical
model as described by Mondelin et al. [32] or a numerical
procedure as developed by Zemzemi et al. [37]. Referring to the
previously cited works of the authors, these models are valid for
steels, stainless steels and composite materials. Further in this
paper, it will be explained why it is not possible to apply these
model in the present case.
The heat ux transmitted to the pin pin is quantied by means
of an inverse methodology developed in [38] and applied in a
friction test by Zemzemi et al. [37] (Fig. 1d). The latter is based on a
temperature measurement located in the pin-holder and on the
identication on a heat transfer function specic to the system pin
and pin-holder. This function provides the link between the
average heat ux transmitted to the pin on a given contact zone
and the temperature recorded in the pin-holder. Interested readers

75

can nd more details about this methodology in the previously

mentioned references as well as in the recent work of BenAbdelali
et al. [34].
It should be noted that only a percentage of the total energy
tot , dissipated during an experiment, is transmitted to the pin.
A large amount of heat remains in the work material work as
shown by Bonnet et al. [29]. Vsl being the sliding velocity, it is
possible to estimate the total energy dissipated in dry conditions
during a test by
tot F n  V sl pin work

Theoretically, the heat partition ratio pin can be estimated as

pin
4
F n  V sl
This expression implies that a heat ux equal to pin  tot is
transmitted to the pin against 1pin  tot to the work material in
dry conditions. In the present work it does not make sense to
quantify this ratio as the generated heat is not only distributed to
the pin and work material but also affected by the cryogenic ow.
A third contribution must be added in the right term of Eq. (3). It is
only possible to estimate the macroscopic heat ux entering into
the pin-holder but without any idea about the ratio between the
heat brought by friction and the heat removed by nitrogen.
pin

3.3. Investigated contact conditions

The investigated contact conditions have to be in agreement
with processing parameters employed in industry. Ti6Al4V and
Inconel718 alloys with carbide tools are commonly machined at
cutting speeds up to maximum 100 m/min. For example, considering a chip compression ratio between 1.5 and 2 with an Inconel718
[9], the average chip sliding velocity Vchip on the tool rake face is
found to be between 50 and 70 m/min against 100 m/min on the
ank face. Consequently, it appears necessary to perform the
present study on a similar range of sliding velocities Vsl starting
from 10 to 100 m/min. Higher sliding velocities could have been
tested but would not have been really achievable in industry with
conventional carbide tools.
A normal force Fn of 1000 N is applied on a pin with a spherical
diameter of D9 mm in order to reach an average contact pressure
of 1.5 GPa, assessed with the model developed by Bonnet et al.
[29]. This order of magnitude is in accordance with the contact
pressure estimated along the tooltitanium interface as shown by

Material: TiAl64V
F : 1000 N
Pin: 9 mm WC-Co
Coating: uncoated

app

Fig. 2. Inuence of cryogenic lubrication on the apparent friction coefcient between Ti6Al4V and an uncoated carbide pin.

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C. Courbon et al. / Tribology International 66 (2013) 7282

Sima and zel [24] or Karpat [39].

Regarding lubrication conditions, three congurations have
been tested dry friction, liquid phase nitrogen and gas phase
nitrogen lubrication. Nitrogen is applied in front of the pin as
shown in Fig. 1c. The delivery phase of the nitrogen can be
controlled by the computer control system [40] and in the case
of liquid nitrogen (196 1C) lubrication was set in such a way to
obtain only the liquid phase at the outlet of nozzle; while to insure
the gas phase delivery, temperature of the N2 has been adjusted to
70 1C. The pressure of the nitrogen in the system is set by the

Dewar pressure to 0.15 MPa and a ow rate of around 1 kg/min is

reached by using a 1 mm nozzle diameter.

4. Results on Ti6Al4V
4.1. Apparent friction coefcient
The evolution of the apparent friction coefcient app versus the
sliding velocity Vsl is presented in Fig. 2 for the Ti6Al4V alloy. It is

Material: TiAl64V
F : 1000 N
Pin: 9 mm WC-Co
Coating: uncoated

Fig. 3. Inuence of cryogenic lubrication on the heat ux transmitted to an uncoated carbide pin when sliding against Ti6Al4V (For interpretation of the references to color
in this gure caption, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.).

Material flow

Material: TiAl64V
Fn : 1000 N
Pin: 9 mm WC-Co
Coating: uncoated

DRY

500 m

Cryo liquid

500 m

Cryo gas

500 m

10

20

40

60

80

100 m/min

Fig. 4. Optical analyses showing the inuence of the lubrication mode on material transfer from Ti6Al4V to an uncoated carbide pin.

C. Courbon et al. / Tribology International 66 (2013) 7282

Sliding
velocity
(m/min)

20

60

100

SE

Material flow

Ti

Ni

DRY

Liquid Nitr.

600 m

77

Fig. 5. Inuence of cryogenic lubrication on material transfer between Ti6Al4V and an uncoated carbide pin: secondary electron (SE) and EDS analyses.

Cryo liquid

Cryo gas

20

m/min

DRY

100 m

500 m

100 m

500 m

100 m

100

500 m

Material: TiAl64V
Fn : 1000 N
Pin: 9 mm WC-Co
Coating: uncoated

Material flow

Fig. 6. Secondary electron (SE) images showing the different contact mechanisms between a Ti6Al4V and an uncoated carbide pin depending on the lubrication mode.

shown that app generally decreases slightly as the sliding velocity

increases. As a cryogenic uid is applied, it can be observed that
neither the gas phase nitrogen, nor the liquid nitrogen affects the
apparent friction coefcient which remains in the range of 0.20.3.
Under dry conditions only, it is interesting to compare the
values obtained from these tests with the friction coefcient
reported in the scientic literature. Indeed, some authors, such
as Bker [41], consider that friction can be neglected when
machining a titanium alloys with carbide tools, whereas Battaglia
et al. [38], Cotterell and Byrne [42] or Sima and zel [24] consider
that the sliding friction coefcient is constant and around
0.5 whatever the cutting speed is between 30 and 120 m/min.
Calamaz et al. [25] and Wyen and Weneger [26] selected a
constant value close to 0.3 irrespective of the cutting speed in
the range 10180 m/min. Finally, these values are consistent with
those recently provided by Egana et al. [43] with uncoated carbide
pins in dry conditions.

enables to assess the macroscopic heat transfers based on a single

temperature measurement (Fig. 1d). As illustrated in Fig. 3, red
arrows indicate the heat ux generated by friction, whereas blue
arrows represent the heat ux removed by the CLF.
The cooling effect of the liquid phase is accordingly much higher
than the gas phase. A difference of 4050 W between the liquid
nitrogen lubrication and dry condition can be noted on the whole
range of sliding velocities. It is also interesting to observe that the
measured heat ux has a negative value when the liquid phase is
used below 20 m/min. Heat dissipated by friction and transmitted to
the pin holder is smaller than the heat lost in the forced convection
heat transfer with the nitrogen. However the pinwork material
interface may still be submitted to an elevated temperature according to the high apparent friction coefcient and since the thermal
conductivity of titanium (work 6 W K1 m1 ) is very low compared
to carbide (pin 44 W K1 m1 ).
4.3. Material transfer

4.2. Heat transfer

In parallel, Fig. 3 reports the evolution of the heat ux
transmitted to the pin holder during the friction tests. As already
observed in previous works [29,37,43], the heat ux increases with
the sliding velocity but signicantly decreases as soon as a
cryogenic uid is applied. The instrumentation of the pin holder

Fig. 4 illustrates the adhesion observed on the pins after 10 s on

the whole range of sliding velocities. The contact zone is found to
be completely covered with an increasing volume of transferred
material as the velocity increases, whatever the lubrication conditions are. As a result, it is very difcult to discriminate the
contribution of the adhesive and deformation phenomena as

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C. Courbon et al. / Tribology International 66 (2013) 7282

Material: Inco718
F : 1000 N
Pin: 9 mm WC-Co
Coating: TiN

app

Fig. 7. Inuence of cryogenic lubrication on the apparent friction coefcient between Inconel718 and a TiN coated carbide pin.

Material: Inco718
F : 1000 N
Pin: 9 mm WC-Co
Coating: TiN

Fig. 8. Inuence of cryogenic lubrication on the heat ux transmitted to a TiN coated carbide pin when sliding against Inconel718.

proposed in Section 3.2 (Eq. (2)). The material build-up in front of

the pin may change the contact geometry and either prevent or
promote a ploughing effect. Analytical formulas based on a
partially spherical contact are certainly no longer valid. It can still
be assumed that adhesion is predominantly responsible for the
measured tangential force, leading to an apparent friction coefcient app closely corresponding to the adhesive part adh .
Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Energy-dispersive
X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) analyses have also been carried out
and conrm the presence of titanium (Fig. 5). It clearly appears
that injecting a cryogenic uid close to the contact area does not
modify material transfer compared to dry conditions.
A closer investigation reveals that, besides a similar macroscopic behaviour in terms of friction, contact mechanisms seem to
be different (Fig. 6). Features observed on a lower scale tend to
show that the work material is getting more brittle when moving
from dry to cryogenic conditions. If this is particularly true at the
lowest sliding speed, conrmed by the delamination of the
sticking material in Fig. 6b, the mechanism is found to change as
the velocity increases, i.e. as the temperature at the pinwork
material interface increases.

5. Results on Inconel718
5.1. Apparent friction coefcient
Fig. 7 represents the evolution of the apparent friction coefcient app depending on the sliding velocity Vsl in the case of
Inconel718. In dry conditions, it is shown that friction coefcient
decreases signicantly from 0.5 to 0.2 as sliding velocity increases.
These values have rst to be compared with the few friction
coefcients available in the literature for this work material. For
instance Ulutan and zel [44] reported values between 0.4 and
0.6 for a range of cutting conditions between 55 and 90 m/min. An
earlier study conducted by Liao and Shiue [45] provided friction
coefcient from 0.8 to 1.18 between 15 and 35 m/min when using
uncoated carbide P20 and K20. However these values were not
determined by any friction test but by tting a numerical cutting
model to experimental data in the rst reference, and an analytical
model based on cutting mechanics in the second one. Berger and
Hogmark [46] are the only ones who performed some tribological
tests at a very low speed of 13 mm/s ( o 1 m=min) with two
cylinders in contact, one made of Inconel718 and another made

C. Courbon et al. / Tribology International 66 (2013) 7282

Material flow

79

Material: Inco718
Fn: 1000 N
Pin: 9 mm WC-Co
Coating: TiN

DRY

500 m

Cryo liquid

500 m

Cryo gas

500 m

10

20

40

60

80

100 m/min

Fig. 9. Optical analyses showing the inuence of the lubrication mode on material transfer from Inconel718 to a TiN coated carbide pin.

Sliding
velocity
(m/min)

20

Material flow

100

SE

Ti

Ni

DRY

Liquid Nitr.

600 m

60

Fig. 10. Inuence of cryogenic lubrication on material transfer between Inconel718 and an uncoated carbide pin: secondary electron (SE) and EDS analyses.

of TiN coated carbide. Friction coefcient close to 0.5 has been

measured when the normal load was lower than 200 N but up to
0.8 when it was increased to 700 N.
Regarding the inuence of cryogenic conditions, gas phase
nitrogen slightly decreases the friction coefcient by on average
10% on the whole range of sliding velocities, whereas liquid
nitrogen leads to a 40% reduction at the lowest speed. When
increasing the sliding velocity, the inuence of liquid nitrogen
remains superior to when the gas phase is injected but the
reduction is limited to 18%.

5.2. Heat transfer

The variations of the heat ux transmitted to the pin holder are
shown in Fig. 8. As previously, it increases with sliding velocity and
appears to be drastically lowered under cryogenic conditions with
a predominant effect of the liquid phase. A difference of 6085 W
between the liquid nitrogen lubrication and the dry conditions can
be observed irrespective of the sliding speed corresponding to
a reduction of at least 70% against 20% for the gas phase.
As mentioned in Section 4.2 in the case of the titanium alloy, the

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C. Courbon et al. / Tribology International 66 (2013) 7282

Cryo liquid

20

m/min

DRY

100 m

500 m

100 m

100

500 m

Material flow

Material: Inco718
Fn : 1000 N
Pin: 9 mm WC-Co
Coating: TiN

Fig. 11. Secondary electron (SE) images showing the different contact mechanisms between a Inconel718 and a TiN coated carbide pin depending on the lubrication mode.

negative heat ux extracted when the liquid phase is applied is

mostly due to the high cooling capacity of the jet at this low
sliding speed.
5.3. Material transfer
Just as the titanium alloy, an important material transfer can
be seen again in Fig. 9 even after 10 s of sliding contact. Even
though larger deposits have been formed below 40 m/min, the
sliding velocity does not really play a signicant role above this
value with the different lubrication congurations.
Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Energy-dispersive
X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) analyses largely revealed that the
build-up is precisely made of nickel (Fig. 10) but also highlighted
a delamination of the TiN coating at 20 m/min when liquid
nitrogen was applied. Applying a cryogenic uid, preferably as
a liquid phase, almost eliminates adhesion at very low sliding
velocities and reasonably decreases adhesion at higher values. This
evolution correlates the variations of the friction coefcient presented in Fig. 7, in agreement with Grzesik's ndings [47].
It can be noted that the local mechanisms appear similar and
even more pronounced compared to those reported on the
Ti6Al4V. The work material is suggested to become more brittle
at low speeds due to a longer exposure time to the cryogenic uid.
The surface of the adhered material mainly consists of partially
sticking layers at 20 m/min with liquid nitrogen whereas it is
characterised by a smoother and more uniform topography in dry
conditions or when the sliding velocity increases (Fig. 11). Breakage and scaling of this build-up occur up to almost 60 m/min when
the liquid phase is applied (Fig. 9b) and can tend to peel the
coating off (Fig. 10).

6. Discussion
As mentioned in the introduction and Section 2, cryogenic
machining has been largely developed to reduce the wear of the
cutting tools when such alloys are employed [14]. It is important to
emphasize that wear is not a generic term and that different
types of damage and wear mechanisms have to be considered
([48] Chapter 4). Adhesion and diffusion are the most active ones
for almost all tool materials when machining titanium [2] or

nickel-based alloys [49], although abrasion can occur mostly on

the ank face due to embedded hard particles. The rst two being
thermally driven, they are most likely to be affected when a CLF is
used to reduce the cutting temperature.
In this study, it has been reported that a cryogenic assistance
based on nitrogen does not inuence neither the friction coefcient nor material transfer when sliding over a Ti6Al4V workpiece.
However, it is conrmed to be an effective way of removing a large
amount of heat from the cutting process. These observations are in
agreement with the recent experimental work conducted by
Bermingham et al. [22] in turning who observed a drastic reduction of the tool temperature but minor changes in the feed force,
mainly related to friction. As a consequence, the improvement of
cutting tool life reported in the literature when a cryogenic uid is
injected [12,22,20] is assumed to be mainly due to a macroscopic
cooling effect of the cutting tool (heat sink) and not due to a
lubrication effect as stated by Hong et al. [12,17]. Temperature
dependent wear mechanisms can thus be limited as well as
thermal softening of the tool materials. In that sense, the application of a liquid phase obviously appears much more efcient than
a gas phase. Nevertheless, the fact that both friction coefcient and
adhesion are not impaired on Ti6Al4V indicates that cryogenic
conditions are not able to decrease neither the mechanical loads
applied on the cutting tools nor the generated frictional energy. A
lubrication capability of the nitrogen jet can here denitely be
questioned.
Regarding Inconel718, besides a benecial thermal effect, a
reduction of the mechanical stresses withstood by the cutting
tools is expected through a lower friction coefcient and build-up
formation. Therefore, the enhanced cutting tool life observed using
cryogenic assistance when machining nickel-based alloys at industrial cutting speeds [13,50,51] can be related to a combined cooling
and tribological effect. The application of liquid nitrogen is again
much more relevant to prevent the tools from excessive adhesive
and diffusive wear, as well as thermal softening of the cobalt
binder phase and subsequent plastic deformation of the cutting
edge commonly observed above 30 m/min [52].
Besides these conclusions, it should be kept in mind that the
contact mechanisms under such conditions are so complex and
certainly so coupled that it is difcult to state if a reduction of the
friction coefcient is due to a lubrication effect or a change in the
work material mechanical and \ or chemical properties. On both

C. Courbon et al. / Tribology International 66 (2013) 7282

Ti6Al4V and Inconel718, scaling and delamination of the sticking

material have been observed to a certain extent which suggested
that a ductilebrittle transition in their behaviour occurred.
Titanium obviously has a good afnity with nitrogen and gas
nitriding is used effectively for protecting surfaces against wear
and corrosion [53]. Even if this treatment usually requires high
temperatures, 6001000 1C, and a long time, one can wonder if an
interaction could arise on a microscopic scale where such temperatures can be locally reached. This would benecially change
the properties of the TiN coating, or conversely impair the
tribological properties of the titanium alloy in contact with an
uncoated tungsten carbide.
Concerning a possible lubricating effect, it is even harder to
describe how a lubrication lm can be formed. Dhananchezian
and Kumar [20] claimed that a better lubrication and lower
friction coefcient can be achieved by the formation of uid/gas
cushion between the tool/workpiece surfaces. Hong [17] came up
with the conclusion that liquid nitrogen itself has good lubrication
properties and that a lower friction can be obtained by separating
the contacting bodies, especially if the uid is sprayed with a
nozzle. If this might be possible at low contact pressures, according to the contact geometry and low loads used in Hong's work, it
has not been observed in the present study performed at 1.5 GPa.
It is therefore believed that under extreme contact pressures, the
uid is not able to penetrate the contact interface and cannot
really act as a lubricant. Moreover, the superior cooling capability
of liquid nitrogen is explained by the phase transformation from
liquid to gas (latent heat of vaporization). Considering its boiling
point (196 1C), nitrogen probably evaporates quickly as it comes
in contact with the warm cutting tool and a thin gas layer may
then be formed. A deeper investigation would be needed in order
to reach microscopic data such as pressure distribution and to
determine which phase of the nitrogen is actually in the contact.
This would lead to a better understanding regarding the role of the
uid and conrm or not if a lubricating lm may exist.
Finally, it can be pointed out that the cryogenic uid was
applied in the opposite direction of the sliding velocity vector.
According to the rotation of the workpiece, the nitrogen might be
pushed towards the pinworkpiece interface. This is thought to be
consistent with the conditions at the toolworkpiece interface, i.e.
on the ank face, but would not be completely accurate to
reproduce the toolchip contact. The chip sliding movement on
the tool rake face will indeed tend to force the uid to move away
from the interface. Even if this would not promote the formation
of a lubrication lm, as previously discussed, it might be of interest
to conduct a detailed investigation on this aspect to assess if the
macroscopic cooling properties could be impaired.

7. Conclusions
This paper focused on the tribological behaviour of Ti6Al4V and
Inconel718 alloys against uncoated and TiN coated carbide tools in
dry and cryogenic conditions. In order to simulate the contact
conditions corresponding to those occurring at the contact interfaces, a specially designed open tribometer tted with a cryogenic
injection system has been used to characterise macroscopic friction coefcient, heat transfer and material transfer depending on
the sliding velocity.
The high cooling capabilities of liquid nitrogen have been
proved on both investigated materials with a drastic reduction of
the heat transmitted to the pin in the whole range of sliding
velocities. However, neither liquid nor gas nitrogen has been able
to decrease the friction coefcient and material transfer when
Ti6Al4V and uncoated carbide pins were used, while a signicant
improvement has been noted for Inconel718 and TiN coated pins.

81

A slight lubrication effect can indeed be expected in this last

conguration but the contact mechanisms are still not fully
understood. More generally, cryogenic assistance is thought to
mainly provide an intensive cooling of cutting tools, which may
explain their better wear resistance when machining these alloys.
The present contribution emphasized that a deeper investigation has to be done regarding the behaviour of the work material
under similar cryogenic conditions as well as the tribo-chemical
afnity of nitrogen with titanium. A ductilebrittle transition
temperature could be reached and would explain the delamination of the build-up observed on both studied superalloys,
whereas a local nitriding of the surface could modify the tribological properties, whether from the tool coating or the work
material point of view. Finally, this work provides quantitative
experimental data in terms of friction coefcient depending on
sliding velocity that can support the development of macroscopic
cutting models for titanium or Inconel718 alloys in dry or
cryogenic machining.

Acknowledgements
Authors would like to express their gratitude to the French
Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs (MAEE) and French
Ministry of Higher Education and Research (MESR) for their
nancial support via the PHC PROTEUS programme.
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