Modeling of Tool Wear in Turning EN 31 Alloy Steel using Coated Carbide Inserts

Introduction

Metal cutting is one of the important and widely used manufacturing processes in engineering industries. The study of metal cutting focuses, among others, on the features of tools, input work materials, and machine parameter settings influencing process efficiency and output quality characteristics (or responses). A significant improvement in process efficiency may be obtained by process parameter optimization that identifies and determines the regions of critical process control factors leading to desired outputs or responses with acceptable variations ensuring a lower cost of manufacturing. The cost of machining which amounts to more than 15% of the value of all manufactured products is dependent on the rate of material removal, and costs may be reduced by optimizing the cutting parameters such as speed, feed and depth of cut. However, there are limits to the cutting parameters above which excessive cutting forces and tool tip temperature may lead to tool life reduction.

This work focuses on machining of EN 31 alloy steel with coated carbide tools. This work material constitutes an important class of work material due to its wide applications in manufacturing industry. Due to stringent dimensional and surface requirements these materials need machining which can be accomplished by the use of turning or milling operations. Due to these concerns, there is a need to develop better understanding of the effects of process conditions on the wear behavior of cutting tools.