10/20/2010 Hard turning, tool life, and surface quali…

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Hard turning, tool life, and surface

quality
Manufacturing Engineering, Apr 2001 by Dawson, Ty G,
Kurfess, Thomas R
Engineers want materials with long service lives, and processes for shaping them into finished
products with tight geometric tolerances and excellent surface finish. Hardened steel is one such
material, used particularly in the automotive industry for components such as bearings, gears,
shafts, and cams. Soft steel must be hardened to increase the strength and wear resistance of
parts made from this material. Traditionally, finished surfaces must be ground on near-net-
shape, hardened-steel parts.

However, the grinding process itself may require several machine tools and several setups to
finish all component surfaces. Because grinding can be a slow process with low material-removal
rates, there has been a determined search for replacement processes.

Enter hard turning. Recent improvements in machine tool rigidity and the development of
ceramic and CBN cutting tools allow the machining of hardened steel. Even though hard turning
consists of small depths of cut and feed rates, material removal rates can be much higher than
those achieved by grinding, depending on the application. Estimates of reduced machining time
are as high as 60%. This reduction can make it possible to employ flexible manufacturing
systems and reduced batch sizes, both of which are growing more important in industry. Aside
from decreases in machining time, reducing the number of required machine tools may be a
result of the increased flexibility of hard turning compared to grinding. Using fewer machines
would reduce part-handling costs and the cost associated with having multiple operators and
machine setups. Hard turning can also be done without coolant.

It seems obvious that hard turning is an attractive replacement for many grinding operations,
but implementation in industry remains relatively uncommon, particularly for critical surfaces.
Several issues remain unaddressed. For one, hard turning can influence the workpiece surface
microstructure by generating undesirable residual stress patterns and overhardened surface
zones, known as white layers. The cause of these residual stress patterns and white layers and
their effect on parts are not fully understood. Also, because cutting tools required for hard
turning are much more expensive than tools for conventional turning, tool life influences the
economics when users seek to replace grinding operations with hard turning.

To become a realistic replacement for many grinding operations, hard turning must prove it can
create equivalent finished surfaces. It must hold geometric tolerances and produce undamaged
surfaces that conform to surface roughness requirements. Under ideal conditions, part geometry
and surface finish comparable to those generated by grinding can be hard-turned with
extremely rigid machine tools and new cutting insert materials. With less rigid machines and
improper cutting conditions, however, tool wear is excessive and eliminates any cost savings.
Worn cutting tools also increase the amount of surface damage observed on hard-turned
components.

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10/20/2010 Hard turning, tool life, and surface quali…
White layer and residual tensile stresses might be expected to reduce fatigue life. But research
comparing fatigue life of hard-- turned and ground surfaces found the hard-turned surfaces
have increased life despite the existence of brittle white layers. Compressive stresses found on
hard-- turned surfaces also improve fatigue lives. Because the effects of white layer on the
resulting component life are not well understood, industry remains reluctant to produce critical
surfaces by a hard turning process that may contain white layers. More research is needed to
determine how cutting parameters affect tool wear and surface integrity.

As this article is prepared, we've tested thirteen different cutting conditions. They span the
range of recommended conditions for the cutting tools used, and match reasonable conditions
selected in past research and by industry. Cutting speed, feed rates, and radial depths of cut
were varied for four different tool materials, made by two CBN insert suppliers. We machined
52100 tube stock hardened to approximately Rc62. This hardness was maintained throughout
the thickness of the tube, as it was possible to quench from both the OD and ID.

The test conditions contained five subgroups. Divisions are based primarily on the cutting tool
material, although the first two subgroups are separated by radial depth of cut. The second
grouping is the only set of tests run at the larger radial depth of cut.

Cutting tools for all experiments were CBN-tipped cutting inserts that, in combination with the
toolholder, provided -50 side and back rake angles, a 0.794-mm nose radius, and a 20 edge
chamfer 0. 102-mm wide. Cutting forces were recorded during each test pass using a
piezoelectric dynamometer. Tool inspections were made with a standard optical microscope and
a scanning electron microscope.

Tool wear not only reduces tool life, but also affects surface finish, increases cutting forces and
tensile residual stress, and causes white layer surface damage. Resistance to tool wear is a
function of many variables, including CBN content, grain size, binder material, tool geometry,
cutting edge geometry (sharp vs. chamfered), workpiece properties, and cutting conditions. The
brittle nature of ceramic and CBN tools makes them prone to chipping at the cutting edge, while
abrasive wear and adhesion may cause premature tool failure. Lower-CBN-content tools with a
ceramic binder are generally more resistant to abrasive wear due to increased bonding strength,
while higher-CBN-content tools with metallic binders have improved fracture toughness. More
work needs to be done to determine how tool material, workpiece material, tool geometry, and
cutting conditions affect wear rates and life of CBN cutting tools.

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