Journal of Sci., Engg. & Tech. Mgt.

Vol 2 (1), January 2010

Cutting Tool Wear-Mechanisms

Rajesh Y. Patil Assistant Professor, Department of Manufacturing Engineering MPSTME, SVKMs NMIMS, Mumbai 400056 Email: raj.finiteelement@gmail.com

Abstract Wear of cutting tool which affects the useful life of tool and which is one of the most important parameter affecting machining economics. The different wear mechanisms are described. Importance and need of research in wear mechanisms particularly for hard machining, high speed machining for currently used work piece-tool materials is described. I. Introduction Metal cutting or Simply Machining, is one of the oldest processes for shaping components in the manufacturing industry. It is estimated that 15% of the value of all the mechanical components manufactured worldwide is derived from machining operations[1]. To remain in business manufacturing companies have to machined the components at required quality with minimum possible cost and hence the life of cutting tool become utmost important aspect for manufacturing engineers and researcher. There are numbers of reasons for Tool failure. The unavoidable reason is gradual wear which is the result of interaction between work and tool[17] Tool wear and breakage has been an issue with cutting tools since they were created. Tool wear weakens the cutting tool, increases the forces used in cutting and causes a lack of consistency in material removal. Parts and time lost to scrap and rework from tool wear are costly to manufacturing companies. Under high temperature, high pressure, high sliding velocity and mechanical or thermal shock in cutting area, cutting tool has normally complex wear appearance, which consists of some basic wear types such as crater wear, flank wear, thermal crack, brittle crack, fatigue crack, insert breakage, plastic deformation and The dominating basic wear types vary with the change of cutting conditions. Crater wear and flank wear shown in Figure-1are the most common wear types. II. Tool wear mechanisms Different classifications of tool wear processes have been addressed in the literature. Basically, five wear mechanisms or any combinations of them are involved in tool wear. These are abrasion, adhesion, fatigue, dissolution/diffusion, and tribochemical process.Attrition as a tool wear mechanism was also reported . Holmberg and Matthews [4] mention four main mechanisms of tool wear namely adhesive wear, abrasive wear, delamination wear and wear due to chemical instability, including diffusion, solution and electrochemical wear[5]. Shaw[18] mention eight types/mechanisms for tool wear as adhesive wear, abrasivewear, diffusion wear, fatigue, delamination wear, microchiping,gross fracture, plastic deformation. It is well accepted that the tool wear mechanisms in metal cutting involve more than one wear mechanism and it is difficult to predict the relative importance of any one of them. Predominance of wear mechanism depends on cutting conditions [18]. The development in tool materials (i.e.use of CVD and PVD coated cemented carbides and HSS, cermets, ceramics, cubic boron nitride and diamond), use of high strength low weight materials, and increasing use of hard machining (to replace grinding and other process to achieve surface finish),minimum use of cutting fluids (to minimise negative impact on environment) ,high speed machining. All these aspects directing towards need of more research on tool wear and

Figure-1 Build-up Edge.

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Journal of Sci., Engg. & Tech. Mgt. Vol 2 (1), January 2010

inparticularly mechanisms responsible for wear. 1. Abrasion It is due to ploughing by hard constituents including fragments of built-up edge as they swept over the tool surface[17]. Abrasive wear has been frequently reported as a main wear mechanism particularly in hard turning. Abrasive wear dominates flank and crater wear particularly with HSS tools [6]. This wear is main cause failure in low cutting speed spectrum. The cutting speed and the material being machined are imp variables for abrasive wear mechanism. 2. Adhesion The simple mechanism of friction and wear proposed by Bowden and Tabor is based on the concept of the formation of welded junctions and subsequent destruction of these. Due to the high pressure and temperature, welding occurs between the fresh surface of the chip and rake face because of the chip flowing on the rake face results in chemically clean surface. Severe wear is characterized by considerable welding and tearing of the softer rubbing surface at high wear rate, and the formation of relatively large wear particles [15] The strength of the bonding at the points of adhesion is often so great that while attempting to free the surfaces, separation takes place not along the interface but in one of the material itself transferring and removing materials often with the sliding members in pair[17] 3. Diffusion Wear through diffusion at the tool-chip contact has been investigated by number of researchers like Trigger and Chao[9] Loladze[10], Ghosh ,Bhattacharyya[11] Diffusion wear characterizes the material loss due to diffusion of atoms of the tool material into the workpiece moving over it[5]. Requirements for diffusion wear are metallurgical bonding of the two surfaces so that atoms can move freely across the interface, a temperature high enough to make rapid diffusion possible, and some solubility of the tool material phases in the work material From the analysis proposed by Altintas [20] the diffusion wear appear when the temperature of the tool and workpiece increase at the contact zones, the atoms in the two

Fig 2 materials become restive and migrate to the opposite material where the concentration of the same atom is less. Typically, in a tool material such as tungsten carbide (WC), where carbide (C) provides the hardness, while cobalt (Co) binds the WC grains, carbon diffuses to the moving steel chips, which have less concentration of the same atoms. Progressive diffusion of the tool materials into the chip gradually leads to a weakened cutting edge and eventual chipping or breakage of the tool. Due to the high temperature and high stress in hard turning,diffusion and dissolution mechanisms have received significant attention [7] Bhattacharyya and Aspinwall [12]observed a very smooth surface with ridging characteristics of diffusion and suggested that diffusion is the primary wear mechanism. Dearnley and Grearson [13] found that the CBN tool is prone to diffusion/dissolution at a high cutting-speed range. Suh [19] mentioned that diffusion/dissolution type mechanism occurs when a hard cemented tungsten carbide or CBN tool is used to cut steel. Kramer[14] mentioned that in machining of steel and super alloys by CBN tools, cutting temperature may reach above1,200C, at which the wear rate becomes diffusion-limited and both the chemical stability and the diffusivity control the wear rate. From the basic laws of diffusion it is known that the rate of diffusion for any substance follows a hyperbolic relationship i.e. Initially the rate of diffusion is very large and then asymptotically diminishes to zero. However during chip formation the diffusion process is Dynamic when fresh cut chip material comes in continuous contact with tool surface for a short time interval. In spite of the

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Journal of Sci., Engg. & Tech. Mgt. Vol 2 (1), January 2010

fact that the time of contact is small, the rate of dissolving would be higher because of a sharp concentration gradient with continuously nascent surfaces[17]. 4. Electrochemical wear is due to a thermoelectric emission generated at the chiptool junction causing electric currents to circulate resulting in the passage of ions from the tool surface to the workpiece material. This may result in breakdown of the tool material and scaling of the tool surface at the tool chip interface (Moore, 1975). The thermoelectric current is formed at the chipcrater contact and at the flank-workpiece contact and its intensity has been found to be as high as 5A with the tool being of negative polarity (Opitz, 1975: Shan and Pandey, 1980; Uehara, 1992). In many research paper mentions(as well as discuss) the role of heavy thermoelectric currents that are generated particularly when steel is cut by tungsten carbide tools (Axer and Optiz,1956). The flow of current in this case is from chip to tool and it is claimed that wear may be reduced by preventing this current flow by insulating tool from the system (refer Figure-3) or by introducing a counter EMF that reduces the current flow to zero. But the heavy thermoelectric currents are eddy currents are eddy currents ,insulating the tool or applying a counter EMF will have little influence on these eddy currents[18]

5.Delamination wear is due to plastic deformation of the surface leading to subsurface crack nucleation propagation and the liberation of tiny flakes from the tool surface. This has been observed when high speed tools soften due to annealing during machining (Suh, 1986). 6. Oxidation wear High temperatures and the presence of air mean oxidation for most metals. A slight oxidation of tool face is helpful to reduce the tool wear. It reduces adhesion, diffusion by isolating the tool and the workpiece. But at high temperature soft oxide layers, for example CO3O4, WO3, TiO2, are formed rapidly, and then taken away by the chip and the workpiece. This results in a rapid tool material loss, which is oxidation wear. Cutting speed and the temperature at the interfaces is important as magnitude of these type of variables decides the type of wear mechanism as well as changing from one type to other B1. Lin [8] concluded following observations while cutting hardened AISI4340 alloy steel with CBN tool. (1) When the cutting temperature is comparatively low (i.e. at low speed cutting), there are high cutting forces because the degree of the softening of work material is not significant. Hence, the tool face would be scratched by the hard carbide particles of work material and the binder of the CBN is removed. The main type of wear is abrasion, and there are scratched marks on tool face. (2) The softening of work material becomes significant as cutting speed is increased. This, in turn, causes cutting forces to reduce. Abrasion is not important any more. The diffusionand oxidation would be more pronounced. A layer with oxidized compounds exhibiting a lower melting point is generated. This layer can protect cutting tool from wear. Hence, tool wear is reduced and tool life is prolonged. (3) When there is very high cutting temperature, the sticking layer is worn away due to a great friction force. In addition, the bond between the CBN particles of the cutting tool is weakened owing to severe diffusion of work and tool materials. Hence, CBN particles are plucked out of the tool face. Subsequently, cutting edge is weakened, and flank wear is increased.

Figure-3

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Journal of Sci., Engg. & Tech. Mgt. Vol 2 (1), January 2010

7. Thermal Fatigue Wear Thermal cycling and thermal shock can lead to early failure even with PCBN tooling. This can be associated with both interrupted turning and milling(which by nature is interrupted). When machining with coolant, thermal shock of the cutting edge causes early tool chipping. This is associated with the rapid cooling and heating of the tool edge as it enters and exits the interruption, along with the rapid cooling which happens when coolant is applied. 8. Deep Groove Wear [18] Occurrence of deep groove wear is reported while machining high temperature alloys, and materials having strong tendency to strain harden. Based on number of experiments Moltrecht(1964) concluded that flow of chip material at the cutting edge was main cause of deep groove wear. Shaw and Uehara have experimentally verified the fact that chip leaving the cutting edge have high temperature at edges compare to centre of chip. The number of other reasons have been proposed(Albrecht1956, Lambert1961) like

presence of work-hardened layer on the previously cut surfaces, stress concentration due to the stress gradient at the free surface, formation of thermal cracks due to the steep temperature gradient at the free surface, presence of a burr at the edge of the freshly machined surface. III. Tool Wear Models Prediction of tool wear is complex because of the complexity of machining System[15] Many mathematical models are developed to describe and predict tool wear. The models can be classified into two groups 1. Tool life models and 2.Tool wear rate models [15]. Number of new approaches are like ANN(Artificial Neural Network) and Finite Element Methods are being used to develop wear models[16 ]. With rapid development in computing abilities finite element based models and simulations are frequently being used not only to predict wear but to predict performance of highly complex and least understood machining process.

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Journal of Sci., Engg. & Tech. Mgt. Vol 2 (1), January 2010

IV.Conclusion The study of wear mechanisms utmost important to predict useful life of tool as this is one of the important parameter affecting economics of machining. With use of Hard machining, High speed machining ,automation with CVD and PVD coated cemented carbides and HSS, cermets, ceramics, cubic boron nitride and diamond tools, the study of wear mechanism gaining great importance. Understanding and research in those mechanisms which predominate in higher temperature range will be demanding area in future. References: 1. Astakhov V.P. An opening historical note, Int. J. Machining and Machinability of Materials , Vol.1, No.1, pp.3-11, 2006 2.Yong Huang, CBN tool wear in hard turning: a survey on research progresses, Int. J.Adv. Manufacturing Technology Vol.35, 2007,pp. 443453 3. Yen Y.C.,Sohner J.,Weule H.,Schmidt J.,Altan T., Estimation of tool wear of carbide tool in orthogonal cutting using Fem simulation, Machining Science & Technology, vol. 6, 2002 ,pp. 467-486. 4. Holmberg, K., Matthews, A., (1994), Coatings Tribology Properties, techniques and Applications in Surface Engineering. Tribology Series, no.28, part II, United Kingdown, pp.354-358. 5. Carmen TACHE, Dumitru Dumitru, Annals of the ORADEA UNIVERSITY. Fascicle of Management and Technological Engineering, Volume VII (XVII), 2008 6. Sture Hogmark,Wear mechanisms of HSS cutting tools 7. Yong Huang & Y. Kevin Chou & Steven Y. Liang,CBN tool wear in hard turning: a survey on research progresses Int J Adv Manuf Technol Vol.352007,pp.443453 About the Author:

8. H.M. Lin a, Y.S. Liao b, C.C. Wei b Wear behavior in turning high hardness alloy steel by CBN tool, Jou. Of Wear, 2008,pp. 679 684 9. Trigger K.J. and Chao B.T., Mechanism of Crater Wear of Cemented Carbide Tools Transactions of ASME, Vol78,NO.5, 1956 10. Loladze T.N., Adhesion and Diffusion Wear in Metal Cutting, Journal of Institution of Engineers(India),Vol.43,No.3, Nov.1962 11. Bhattacharyya A., Ghosh A., Diffusion Wear of Cutting Tools, Proc. CIRP,Oct.1967 12. Bhattacharyya SK, Aspinwall D, The application of polycrystalline tooling, Mach Hard Mater SME,1982,pp.95103 13. Dearnley PA, Grearson AN, Evaluation of principal wearmechanisms of cemented carbides and ceramics used for machining titanium alloy IMI318,Mater Sci Technol 2:, 1986,pp. 4758 14. Kramer BM , A comprehensive tool wear model., Annal CIRP 35(1):, 1986,pp. 6770 15. Thesis on Thermal modeling & analysis of carbide tool using finite element method T.I.E.T.,June2005 16. Thesis on Tool wear comparative study in turning versus computer simulation in 1018 steel, Brigham Young University, April-2005 17. Amitabha Bhattacharyya,Metal CuttingTheory and Practice , Central Books,1984 18. Milton C. Shaw , Metal Cutting Principles, 2nd Edition, Oxford Univ. Press, 2005 19. Suh NP ,Tribophysics. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ,1986 20.Altintas, Y., Manufacturing AutomationMetal Cutting Mechanics, Machine Tool Vibrations, and CNC Design. Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-65973-6, Cambridge,2000, pp.54-59.

Rajesh Y Patil is Assistant Professor, Manufacturing Engineering Department, MPSTME. Currently pursuing Ph.D. from SVKMs NMIMS. He is having more than 12 years of teaching experience. His current area of research is Thermal modelling of Metal Cutting Processes and Finite Element Methods.

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