Int J Adv Manuf Technol

DOI 10.1007/s00170-016-9505-4

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Milling wear of carbide tool for processing nickel-based alloy

in cryogenic based on the entropy change
Fengbiao Wang 1 & Jingkai Liu 1 & Qilin Shu 1

Received: 24 May 2016 / Accepted: 16 September 2016

# Springer-Verlag London 2016

Abstract This paper presents comprehensive investiga- Keywords Nickel-base alloy . Wear failure . Cryogenic
tion on the nickel-base alloy material used in the aero- milling . Entropy production . Self-organization . Tool service
space with difficult machining whose cutting tool is worn life
failure quickly. The reason mainly relates to the high
temperature of cutting zone. The cryogenic cooling meth-
od was adopted for a series of machining experiments. Nomenclature
Based on the entropy production of the cutting system, σa Entropy production of adhesive wear (J/ksm3)
the entropy productions of diffusion, adhesion, and oxi- п Bonding layer stress tensor
dation wear of tool were calculated under different cut- U Centroid velocity of viscous flow
ting speeds. And the wear mechanism was explained yα Bonding layer strain
through the self-organization characteristics of cutting α,β 3D space whose values is one of 1, 2, 3
friction and wear system. The results indicate that with σs Yield limit of workpiece
the increase of cutting speed, it has the greater entropy vx Radial velocity of tool relative to the workpiece
production. To traditional cutting, at the 132 m/min vy Tangential velocity of tool relative to the workpiece
speed, the entropy production has not had the decreased εx Radial strain of tool bonding layer
stage with time, and the tool self-organizing has not εy Tangential strain of tool bonding layer
p l a y e d a r o l e . H o w e v e r, i n c r y o g e n i c c o o l i n g Rε Workpiece-tool heat distribution coefficient
environment, when the speed is 220 m/min, the cutting HB Workpiece material hardness
tool’s self-organization is still in effect, and its service με Workpiece-tool friction coefficient
life can be significantly extended more than three times. vc Cutting speed
Compared with the traditional processing, the cryogenic vf Feed speed
one is more likely to form a self-organization dissipative VB Wear loss (mm)
structure and obviously improves the cutting speed which kr cutting edge angle (rad)
the self-organization can play a role. Furthermore, it also Fx Feed force (N)
increases the cutting effect with the best processing Fy Main cutting force (N)
efficiency. Fz Back force (N)
Ff Frictional force on rake face (N)
Ac Area coefficient, related to the heat source area
λw Workpiece materials thermal conductivity under the
average temperature
* Fengbiao Wang αw Workpiece material thermal diffusivity
wangfb79@163.com cc Chip specific heat capacity
ρc Chip density (g/mm3)
1
School of Mechanical Engineering, Shenyang Ligong University, Ts Temperature rise caused by shear heat (K)
Shenyang 110168, China Te Environmental temperature (K)
 Int J Adv Manuf Technol

f Feed (mm/r) shape and tool material on cutting temperature, tool wear, and
lc Contact length of tool and chip (mm) machined surface quality. The result was shown that using the
ξc Chip deformation coefficient circular blade the surface roughness value was reduced, but
σd Entropy production of diffusion wear (J/ksm3) the cutting temperature was still higher. Literature [8] found
C Volume concentration of diffusion atoms in the per- that the cutting speed reached more than 50 m/min in turning
pendicular to the direction of the diffusion interface process; the processing hardening phenomenon would be
(1/m3) found on the workpiece. The early wear was severe and the
C1 Element concentration of the tool wear effect of each tooth feeding on the tool flank was larger.
C2 Elements concentration in the workpiece And the hardness of the alloy and the work hardening played a
x Diffusion depth on tool, and it has x = −0.001 mm main role on its cutting machinability. In the literature [9, 10],
D Diffusion coefficient (m2/s)。 it adopted the solid carbide alloy tool with coating to process
D0 Diffusion constant who depends on the metal lattice the difficult-to-machine alloy. Through analyzing the compo-
type and diffusion atomic vibrations (m2/s) sitions of tool wear parts and the morphology change, the
Q Diffusion activation energy (J/mol); influence rule of the tool wear on cutting force and cutting
Td Absolute temperature on the diffusion interface (K) vibration were discussed. The literature [11, 12] established a
R Kelvin constant, R = 8.314 thermodynamics system of high-speed cutting process, and
μi The ith material chemical potential researched the coupling between the various sub-process sys-
Ji Diffusion flow tems, as well as revealed the mechanism of tool wear based on
t Diffusion time, related to processing time (min) the perspective of thermodynamics.
Fi Diffusion force To high pressure and high speed machine processing, the
σc Entropy production of chemical reaction (J/ksm3) interface of tool and high temperature alloy workpieces has a
Aρ Chemical affinity, the product of the measuring coeffi- serious friction, wear and tear. Due to machine work continu-
cient and corresponding Gibbs free energy of the ith ously, the cutting force and cutting temperature are changed
chemical reaction with cutting time. So the entropy productions of the friction
T Absolute temperature (K) and wear system composed by tool-chip and tool-workpiece
ωρ Chemical reaction speed are also inevitable changed with time. According to the theory
Eρ Activation energy (J/mol) of stability [13], in the friction and wear cutting system, the
ζ Experience constant, whose unit is same with the rate boundary conditions had not had a relationship with cutting
constant. time, and the friction of tool rake face had significant impact
σw Whole entropy production (J/ksm3) on the chip formation, cutting force, cutting temperature, and
ap Cutting depth (mm) rake face wear. Additionally, the flank face friction had the
ae Cutting width (mm) same important influence on the machining surface rough-
ness, surface residual stress, and the tool flank face wear.
Based on all of the observations described above, the cut-
1 Introduction ting speed and the high temperature in machining process are
the main reasons for the tool wear. In this study, it is based on
Nickel-based superalloys are one kind of the most attractive the study of cutting difficult-to-machine materials in cryogen-
metal materials who can work in high temperature and alter- ic [14], and cryogenic processing characteristics of nickel-
nating stress environment of long-term. They have excellent base alloy, and considers the traditional cutting friction heat
high temperature strength, thermal stability, thermal fatigue and the entropy production process. Similarly, because of the
resistance, and many special physical and mechanical proper- high ratio of cutting heat on tool rake face, in this cutting
ties [1–3]. So they are a more and more widely used in aero- system the entropy production and tool wear characteristics
space. But in machining because of easier plastic deformation, under the condition of different cutting speed in cryogenic are
bigger cutting force, higher viscosity and cutting temperature, experimentally verified, and the tool wear factors are
and serious tool wear and processing hardening degree, they discussed in detail at the same time.
are classified as a notoriously difficult-to-machine material
and seriously influence the alloy’s machinability [4].
Especially for the tool wear caused by higher temperature, it 2 Cutting system entropy production
greatly restricts the machining efficiency and increases the
processing cost. According to the self-organization theory of cutting friction
Scholars at home and abroad had carried out a large num- and wear system [13, 15], for the tool wear in the stationary
ber mechanism research of tool wear for nickel-base alloy. stage, it means that the dissipative structure could be formed.
The literature [5–7] had investigated the influence of the blade Because of the organization form, it forms a layer of friction
Int J Adv Manuf Technol

film on the tool surface. The spontaneous film can reduce the Table 1 GH4169 properties in different temperature [16–18]
friction coefficient, increase tool life, and improve the surface Temperature/ Yield Tensile Elasticity Shear Elongation/
quality of workpiece. K strength/ strength/ modulus/ strength/ %
Furthermore, the self-organizing process of cutting friction MPa MPa GPa GPa
and wear system may be expressed through the tool wear
293 1220 1440 204 78.4 25
curve, as indicated in Fig. 1. In the initial stage of wear, the
77 1300 1700 226 87 23
friction and wear system of workpiece and tool is disorder
increasing, and the entropy production is also enhanced. In
the initial and stable wear stages, the dissipative structure in
their alternating area is formed. Since, the self-organization of Fig. 2. In the cryogenic cutting, T value decreases, and then
tool begins to play a role. In stable stage, although the entropy σs increases, so compared with the traditional process, the
value continues to increase, the entropy production is declin- diffusion wear entropy has a lot decrease.
ing under the action of self-organization. In the alternating In the process of cutting, cutting temperature change with
area of the stable and rapid wear stages, cutting temperature the tool wear, can be represented by the formula (4) [19] and
is increasing, the tool self-organization is destroyed, the entro- (5) [20].
py and entropy production are increased, and the tool has
Rε  HB  με pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
entered into the stage of rapid wear. Tc ¼ V c  VB ð4Þ
21k r
The main wear forms of tool are usually divided into adhe-
sion, diffusion, and oxidative wear. F y vc A c
−T s −T e
f λw
Rε ¼ sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð5Þ
2.1 Entropy production of adhesion wear F f vc Ac 0:752F f V
þ
f λw f cc ρ c αw  l c  ξc
The entropy production of adhesion wear is mainly attributed
to the viscous flow entropy and can be expressed by the for- Using the cutting parameters such as the cutting speed
mula (1) and (2) [15]. vc = 44, 132 and 220 m/min, the cutting depth of ap = 0.2 mm,
the feed speed of vf = 60 mm/min and the milling width of
1
σa ¼ − Π : ∇U ð1Þ ae = 6 mm, the entropy production of viscosity flow can be
T calculated by the abovementioned formulas, and the calculat-
!
X ∂ ed result is illustrated in Fig. 3. Entropy production is declin-
Π : ∇U ¼ Π Uα ð2Þ
α;β
∂yα;β ing with the increase of wear loss, and at low cutting speed
there has higher entropy production.
In high-speed cutting, the shear strength of the workpiece is
about 1/5 of its yield limit, it can be transformed into
2.2 Entropy production of element diffusion
 
σs ∂vx ∂vy
σa ¼ − þ ð3Þ The entropy production of element diffusion can be ac-
5T ∂εx ∂εy
quired according to the product of the diffusion flow and
From the literature [11] and the Table 1, the yield strength
of alloy material under different temperature is shown in 1400

cutter w ear
entropy production 1200
yield strength/MPa
entropy production

Sharp w ear
stage 1000

Steady w ear
VB

Initial w ear stage

stage 800

600

cutting tim e 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400

temperature/K
Fig. 1 The relationship between the entropy production change and tool
wear in different stages Fig. 2 GH4169 yield strength in different temperature
 Int J Adv Manuf Technol

50
In the analysis of wear mechanism of cemented car-
44m/min bide, it can be illustrated that the diffusion of Co ele-
40 132m/min ment is the main reason, which causes the tool material
entorpy production/(J/ksm )
3

220m/min weakening. In literature [18], the diffusion coefficients

of the cemented carbide element are comprehensively
30
investigated and compared, and the diffusion of Co is
much higher than that of W or C. Analysis indicated
20 that there only calculates the diffusion entropy produc-
tion of Co in the tool. Meanwhile, using the former
cutting parameters the entropy production can be obtain-
10
ed by the formula and shown in Fig. 4.

0
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30 2.3 Entropy production of oxidation reaction
wear/mm
Fig. 3 The relationship between adhesion flow entropy production and In high-speed cutting, the possibility chemical reactions
wear (ap = 0.2 mm, vf = 60 mm/min) mainly are contributed by the oxidation reaction of the
tool and workpiece with air medium, and the substitu-
tion reaction of the metal elemental with oxide, etc.
diffusion force of all elements in diffusion couple [15], The entropy production of oxidation reaction is cal-
who is calculated by culated as follows. First of all, according to the mini-
mum enthalpy principle of machining nickel-base alloy,
X
n
the possible oxidation reactions are deduced. After ma-
σd ¼ J i  Fi ð6Þ
i¼1 chining of the traditional cutting processing using cut-
ting fluid and the cryogenic, the chemical phase com-
Based on the investigated actual situation of GH4169 in position of the tool material can be illustrated in Fig. 5.
high-speed cutting, the average wear of VB = 0.3 mm on the In detail, they are WO3, WO2, TaO2, Co3O4, and CoO.
tool rake face is as its failure criteria. Similarly, the changing Furthermore, the oxidation reaction can be deduced and
rule of entropy production of the tool wear is analyzed. The shown in formulas (11–15). In the cryogenic cutting, the
diffusion flow can be obtained by the formula (7) [17], WO3 phase has not been found, so the second reaction
may not be happening. Whilst compared to the tradi-
pffiffiffiffi   tional process, the oxygen element content on the tool
ðC 2 −C 1 Þ D x2 surface is decreased obviously. It shows that, in the
Ji ¼ pffiffiffiffiffi exp − ð7Þ
2 πt 4Dt cutting zone, the descent temperature causes a decline

The diffusion coefficient D is decided by atomic transition

activation energy Q, the metal lattice type and diffusion atom- 80
ic vibrations in different absolute temperature, and it can be 44m/min
70
expressed by formula (8) 132m/min
220m/min
entorpy production/(J/ksm )

60
3

− RTQ
D ¼ D0 e d ð8Þ
50
The diffusion force Fi is related to the material chemical
40
potential and can be represented as
  30
∂μi
Fi ¼ − ð9Þ
∂T d 20

By diffusion flow and diffusion force expression formula, 10

entropy production of element diffusion can be expressed by 0
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30
pffiffiffiffi !  
X ðC 2 −C 1 Þ D x2 ∂μi
wear/mm
σd ¼ pffiffiffiffiffi exp − − ð10Þ Fig. 4 The relationship between diffusion wear entropy generation and
i 2 πt − Q
4D0 e RT d t ∂T d
wear (ap = 0.2 mm, vf = 60 mm/min)
Int J Adv Manuf Technol

Ʒ :& energy of reaction formula (11) can be obtained and shown

Ƶ :2 in Table 2.
Ʒ ƾ :2
ƹ 7D2 Similarly, the Gibbs free energy of others reactions can be
ƽ &R2 calculated and depicted in Table 3. From these plots, the cal-
ͩ &R2
ͩ culation results of the four chemical reactions are all negative.
So in milling process of cryogenic cooling conditions, these
ƽ c ry o g e n ic 4 4 m /m in
reactions are all possible. Meanwhile, by the absolute value of
Ƶ ƹ
them, it can be inferred that the reaction formula (15) has the
c ry o g e n ic 1 3 2 m /m in
ƾ c ry o g e n ic 2 2 0 m /m in minimum possibility.
tra d itio n a l 1 3 2 m /m in
According to the phenomenological relations of en-
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 tropy production of the irreversible process, it is worth
 ©  R highlighting that the entropy productions of chemical
Fig. 5 Surface phases of tool after machining reaction are decided by in the production of the reaction
rate and the chemical potential in all chemical process-
of the oxidation reaction, and the oxidation degree is es. So the entropy production of oxidation reaction can
reduced at the same time. be calculated by the formula (11) [15, 17]. According to
the self-organization theory, in cryogenic, the system
WC þ 2O2 ¼ WO2 þ CO2 ð11Þ stays a more orderly state. The mechanical processing
2WC þ 5O2 ¼ 2WO3 þ 2CO2 ð12Þ system is also more easily in a stable cutting state, so
TaC þ 2O2 ¼ TaO2 þ CO2 ð13Þ the tool wear is more easy to have a state law rule.
X Aρ Eρ
3Co þ 2O2 ¼ Co3 O4 ð14Þ σc ¼ ζe− RT ð17Þ
T
Co þ O2 ¼ 2CoO ð15Þ ρ

As well as using the former cutting parameters, the

By querying the thermodynamics handbook [17], which entropy production can be obtained by the formula and
can calculate the sum of the minimum Gibbs free energy of demonstrated in Fig. 6. With the increase of the wear
the above effective four oxidation reactions (11),(13),(14) and amount of the rake face, the oxidation wear entropy
(15) by the formula (16). production has the same change trend, and with the
increase of speed, it is also obvious increase. The main
n  
X
n
X reason can be deduced that at higher speed is that the
ΔGθi;T ¼ H θi; f ;298 −T ΔS θi;T n ¼ 1−4 ð16Þ
cutting temperature is also that the oxidative reaction is
i¼1 i¼1
more severe. Therefore, the entropy production is bigger
In the process of isothermal, ΔGθi;T is the algebraic differ- than the low speed one.
ential of needed energy of system enthalpy and entropy
changes. For chemical reactions, it can specifically be 2.4 The whole entropy production
expressed as the algebraic differential of needed energy of
thermal effect and system entropy change under the isother- As mentioned, the analysis and calculation of the entropy
mal and constant pressure conditions. So at first, the free production about above three kinds of wear and tear, it can

Table 2 Gibbs free energy of

oxidation reaction Temperature (K) Standard ΔGθT (J)
∑ΔGθT (J)
WC O2 WO2 CO2

77 −38,075.5 −15,800.4 −593,588.5 −409,962.6 −933,874.8

173 −42,731.5 −35,499.6 −598,436.5 −430,487.4 −915,192.4
273 −47,581.4 −56,019.6 −603,486.5 −451,867.4 −89,732.5
298 −49,691 −61,149.6 −604,749 −457,212.4 −889,970.4
400 −53,584.2 −82,080 −609,900 −-479,020 −871,175.8
500 −58,435 −102,600 −614,950 −500,400 −851,715
600 −64,161.6 −123,120 −620,000 −521,780 −831,378.4
 Int J Adv Manuf Technol

Table 3 Other reaction Gibbs free energy and it is greater than 0.24 mm, the entropy production begins
Temperature (K) to rise again. When the speed is 220 m/min, with the increase
∑ΔGθT (J) of VB, the change trend of the entropy production increases,
but it is almost always rising and the change stage is very
Reaction Reaction Reaction short.
formula (13) formula (14) formula (15)
As mentioned the change trends of entropy produc-
77 −738,465.3 −875,846.2 −467,934.3 tion, it can be concluded that when the cutting param-
173 −711,764.5 −832,167.5 −453,165.5 eter values are in a certain range, the entropy produc-
273 −690,342.5 −787,656.2 −440,053.8 tion has a decline trend. At this stage, the friction and
298 −689,345.6 −786,543.2 −439,321.4 wear system can form the dissipative structure of self-
400 −6,674,384 −745,855 −426,921 organization. But when the parameter’s value is out of a
500 −6,436,591 −706,043 −416,015 certain range, the entropy production has been increas-
600 −6,223,787 −666,347 −406,052 ing, and the dissipative structure is difficult to be
formed easily.
Based on the thermodynamic system development
obtain the total entropy production by the formula (18), and it criterion, the identified stage of wear and tear can be
is shown in Fig. 7. judged. In details when the time derivative of entropy
  production is greater than zero, the system is in unstable
σs ∂vx ∂vy
σw ¼ σd þ σc þ σa ¼ − þ state, which corresponds to the initial and sharp wear
5T ∂εx ∂εy stage. When the derivative is less than or equal to zero,
X   ∂μ  the system is in the stable state which is corresponding
þ Ji − i
to the stability wear stage.
i
∂T
X Aρ Eα
þ ζe− RT ð18Þ
ρ
T
3 Experimental details

From Fig. 7, at different cutting speeds the entropy produc-
tions have different change trends under the action of three
kinds of wear mechanism. When the cutting speed is 44 m/
min, with the increment of friction, it illustrates a climb up and
then declines, and at last increases trend. When the wear VB is
less than 0.11 mm, the tool is at the initial wear stage, the
entropy production significantly increases. When the VB is
in the range of 0.11 to 0.24, the entropy production is reduced,
3.1 Experimental material
The nickel-based superalloy GH4169 used in aerospace
was investigated, and its elemental components were
illustrated in Table 4. And then it was cut into some
80 mm × 60 mm × 30 mm rectangular pieces for each
machining experiment by a wire-electrode cutting ma-
chine, after that their surfaces are cleaned carefully.

200
44m/min 175
44m/min
132m/min
160 132m/min
entorpy production/(J/ksm )

220m/min
3

150
220m/min
entorpy production/(J/ksm )
3

120 125

100
80

75
40
50
0
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30 25
wear/mm 0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30
wear/mm
Fig. 6 Entropy production of oxidation wear (ap = 0.2 mm, vf = 60 mm/
min) Fig. 7 The whole entropy production
Int J Adv Manuf Technol

Table 4 Main elemental composition of GH4169 wt (%) Table 5 Main elemental composition of the tool wt(%)

Ni Cr Mo Nb Ti Al C Si Mn Fe Brand Elemental composition (%)

51.75 17 2.93 5.15 1.07 0.45 0.042 0.21 0.03 others Ti W Co C Ta

YBG202 4.8 77 8 6.45 3.75

3.2 Experimental equipment

Milling experiments were performed on a KVC850m vertical 3.4 Analysis equipment

milling machining center equipped with three-axis linkage
function, its highest spindle speed is 8000 r/min, and the table
travel is 300 mm × 300 mm × 200 mm. The DPL—175 MP
pressurized liquid nitrogen tank made in Beijing Tianhai
Industrial Company was used to supply cryogenic liquid ni-
trogen. An inner-cooling toolholder device and control system
was employed to spray liquid nitrogen with accurate flow
parameters and control the liquid nitrogen nozzle temperature
of 83 K. The low-temperature cutting model and machining
platform are shown in Fig. 8a and Fig. 8b. The hollow tool
was installed in the inner-cooling toolholder, as well as the
toolholder was connected with the machine spindle. The tool-
holder was made in the Japanese Kyocera with TiAlN carbide
coating blades (brand for YBG202 which its main elemental
composition was shown in Table 5), and was used to process-
ing workpieces, and its diameter of cutting department was
ϕ14 mm. Furthermore, Germany FUCHS water-soluble cut-
ting fluid JM3 was used for traditional cutting.
An ultra-deep microscope digital microscope (KEYENCE
VHX- 600, Japan) with resolution of 54 million pixels was
used to obtain workpiece surface morphology. A 3D surface
contourgraph (ZYGO New view5022, USA) with the vertical
resolution of 0.1 nm, lateral resolution of 110 nm, scanning
depth of 2–150 μm, and measurement of 0.001 μm was re-
quired to test surface roughness, and the tool was judged wear
failure when it had wear loss of VB = 0.3 mm, and the tool life
was counted. And a three-phase dynamometer (Kisler9257B,
Swiss) was utilized to measure cutting force of cutting point.
The scanning electron microscope (SEMJSM-6360LV, Japan)
with acceleration voltage of 0.5–30 kV was used to analyze
the surface morphology and structure of the processed. The
phase compositions surfaces were analyzed by X-ray diffrac-
tion (XRD) whose type was D/max-rB, and made in RIGAKU
Corporation, its scanning speed is 1.2 /min.

3.3 Experimental scheme 4 Results and analysis

Using single factor method, the cutting parameters included
the spindle speeds of n = 500, 1000, 3000, 1000, and 3000 r/
min, the cutting speeds of vc = 22, 44, 132, 220, and 308 m/
min, the cutting depths of ap = 0.2 mm, the feed speeds of
vf = 60 mm/min, and the milling widths of ae = 6 mm. Note
that the low, medium, and high speeds could express the cut-
ting speeds of 44, 132, and 220 r/min, respectively.
Similarly, the decomposition model of milling force was
shown in Fig. 8c, there are the feed force Fx, the cutting force
Fy, and the back force Fz.
4.1 Tool surface morphology
After the traditional technology, the microcosmic surface is
uneven and its quality is not enough ideal (Fig. 9a), and the
tool wear is also serious. Especially in high-speed cutting, the
tool and its cutting zone soon are burnt in red, and in a short
time it has been dull. That seriously influences processing
quality of the alloy and the tool life. However, analysis of
the data from experiment, as illustrated in Fig. 9b, revealed
that after liquid nitrogen involved, the surface quality is

Fig. 8 Cryogenic experiment (b) (c)

platform, a milling model, b (a)
experiment platform, c milling handle
force decomposition
pipeline
fixature

Fz
Fy ae
Fx
workpiece

workbench ap f

Fig. 9 Result of processing (a)
(vc = 132 m/min, ap = 0.2 mm,
vf = 60 mm/min), a traditional, b
cryogenic
improved obviously. Meanwhile, the tool wear degree is also
greatly decreased and the durability is increasing. As well as
the processing efficiency is improved significantly. In addi-
tion, at the medium speed, it has better surface quality.
The wear morphologies of milling tool mainly include in
rake face, flank face, and cutting edge wear types. Due to the
cutting process is complication, a variety of wear patterns may
appear at the same time. With the increase of cutting speed, the
tool wear causes corner radius increased which can be seen in
Fig. 10, and the wear loss is increasing, the knifepoint is more
grinding blunt.
Analysis indicated that the nickel-base alloy has high
strength and hardness, and has a lot of hard spots. In the
low-speed cutting, the hard spots cause the hard spots of the
tool increasing. Along with the cutting, the chip brings the
bonding particles away. In addition, the alloy has strong affin-
ity with tool, in processing the alloy chip will be stuck to the
cutting face of the tool. And it causes the abrasive and adhe-
sion wear, and such as the crater and adhesion wears can also
be found on the main cutting surface. In details, there are
adhesive wear points at low speed that are shown in
Fig. 11a, but at high speed the wear is expanded and presents
a planar area (Fig. 11b). Besides near the knifepoint and the
tool flank face, sometimes there has also adhesion wear area
which is demonstrated in Fig. 11c. Because of larger rebound
of the tool and workpiece in high speed and temperature, the
adhesion on the flank increases the squeezing effect of the tool
on workpiece; it causes serious wear to the flank and the
cutting edge.
Fig. 10 Rake face wear in (a)
cryogenic (ap = 0.2 mm, main cutting
vf = 60 mm/min), a vc = 44 m/min, edge
b vc = 132 m/min
wear area
before of tip
processing tip
after
processing tip
minor cutting edge
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
(b)
In high-speed cutting, in unit time the tool processing work
is extended. Because of the contact pressure in cutting, the
rake face and chip, flank and processed surfaces have all stren-
uous friction happened, and the high temperature is inevitably
(instantaneous the tool and workpiece were burnt red and
followed the temperature rose quickly). So the actual contact
area of the milling tool flank and machined surface are
expanded.
4.2 Tool surface elemental compositions
It is worth highlighting that compared with Table 5, Table 6
and Table 7, the oxygen element is found on tool surface after
machining through the two cutting processes, especially in
high speed. So it has inevitably oxidation reactions in that.
Furthermore, to the traditional process the oxidation wear
may be the main style of the tool wear.
But to the cryogenic cutting with high speed, the change of
O element is less. Therefore, the degree of oxidation reaction
is not improved. That means that in cryogenic environment of
high-speed cutting the tool produces a certain oxidation wear.
4.3 Tool wear properties
In three different cutting speeds, the average wear change
process of the tool rake face is demonstrated in Fig. 12a with
cutting time. It can indicate that the whole wear process at low
and medium speed have the same trend based on the previous
entropy production calculation (Fig. 1). Firstly, the tool wear
(b) main cutting
edge
after
processing tip
before
processing tip
minor cutting edge
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
(a) (b)
adhesive wear point
Fig. 11 Adhesive wear of cutting face (ap = 0.2 mm, vf = 60 mm/min), a rake face in vc = 44 m/min, b rake face in vc = 132 m/min, c flank face in
vc = 132 m/min
loss is increased quickly in the initial wear stage. And then in
less than 30 min the loss reaches about 0.09 mm. When it is
greater than 0.09 mm it transfers into the steady stage.
Between 30 and 90 min, the wear loss increases only
0.07 mm. Lastly, when the average wear reaches 0.15 mm,
the wear speed has increased dramatically, and the wear enters
into the stage of rapid wear. But to at 220 m/min cutting speed,
the time of steady stage is shorter; it means the tool wear speed
is bigger at a higher speed.
As identified in Fig. 12b, it is the change of average wear of
rake face in different cutting speed in traditional process. With
the increase of speed, the tool life significantly decreases, and
the steady wear stage is shortened obviously. Furthermore, at
vc = 44 m/min speed, the process is obvious steady. So the
entropy production of tool is reducing with cutting time, and
with the increase of speed, the self-organizing process is
shorter. At vc = 132 m/min speed, the wear process only has
the single stage and there is no obvious steady stage, and the
increased wear almost linearly is increasing. In other words,
the tool has not the stage of decreasing entropy production
with time, so the tool self-organizing plays no role. But for
the cryogenic process (Fig. 12a), when the speed is more than
220 m/min, there has still the obvious entropy production, it
can be deduced that the tool self-organizing still plays a role,
and remains smooth cutting stage. Therefore, at the high-
cutting speed the tool can also normally work.
4.4 Tool wear factors
As mentioned in the methodology section, compared with the
traditional processing, the wear loss is significantly reduced at
Table 6 Main elemental composition of the tool in traditional
Cutting speed m/min Elemental composition (%)
C O Ti Co Ni Ta
44 8.13 7.60 4.69 5.83 17.02 3.32 53.38
132 10.16 11.92 4.28 7.24 13.54 2.76 46.19
220 17.35 18.92 4.31 7.48 7.73 2.25 41.96
(c)
cutting edge
adhesive wear area
adhesive wear area
cutting edge
the same cutting speed; the tool life is obviously improved.
The main reasons are summarized that:
4.4.1 Mechanical properties
From Table 1, in low temperature the elastic modulus of
nickel-base alloy is increased, the rebound degree of proc-
essed surface in cutting is small, the contact stress is also
reduced, and at low speed the abrasive wear caused by the
hard spots is reduced. Meanwhile, the actual contact area be-
tween the tool flank and processed surface of the workpiece is
decreased, and the tool flank wear has also the same change
trend. In addition, on the cutting point the strength of alloy is
increasing in cryogenic, especially the yield strength.
Furthermore, the cutting force and the material brittleness
are all increasing, and the cutting performances are inevitably
enhanced a lot as well as the tensile strength increases more
than 20 %, who increases the alloy brittleness in the cutting
area, as shown in Table 1. So for nickel-base alloy with high
toughness whose cutting fracture mode is changed from the
tensile fracture of produced crack and crack propagation to
brittle fracture, and then the chip is obtained.
4.4.2 Cutting heat
To traditional machining, due to the lower heat conductivity
coefficient of nickel-base alloy, it is only about 1/3–1/5 of
steel. The cutting heat cannot be fast conducted, the tempera-
ture of cutting zone can instantaneous reach more than
1200 K. But in low temperature environment, the cutting heat
is quickly taken away by liquid nitrogen and its gas mixture,
Table 7 Main elemental composition of the tool in cryogenic
Cutting speed m/min Elemental composition (%)
W C O Ti Co Ni Ta W
44 10.01 2.14 1.69 7.13 12.23 3.36 63.43
132 20.61 3.27 4.69 5.95 6.73 1.29 57.19
220 35.67 2.32 0.67 6.53 3.23 0.42 53.07
 Int J Adv Manuf Technol

Fig. 12 Relationship of wear and 0.35 0.35

time, a cryogenic, b traditional 0.30 44m/min 0.30 44m/min
132m/min 132m/min
0.25 220m/min 0.25 220m/min

0.20 0.20

VB/mm
VB/mm
0.15 0.15

0.10 0.10

0.05 0.05

0.00 0.00
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 0 10 20 30 40 50

cutting time/min cutting time/min

(a) cryogenic (b) traditional

and the temperature of cutting microzone is fallen instantly. obvious downward trends. Because the nickel-base alloy be-
Furthermore, in cutting area, the pneumatolytic liquid nitrogen longs to sticky metal, its thermal conductivity is very poor.
gas forms a locality sealed area, which leads to oxygen of the These properties cause the worse effect of heat dissipation
air shielded. So the WC, TiC, and Co in tool materials cannot during high-speed cutting, and the tool temperature rise is
set off chemical reacts with oxygen of the air. Therefore, it is inevitably very fast. Furthermore, the yield strength and ten-
not easy to find the severe diffusion and oxidation wear from sile strength of the alloy are obviously increased in cryogenic
the little change of the oxygen content. condition. So it needs bigger milling force to remove material
in cutting. Though the horizontal resistance and friction force
4.4.3 Cutting force are increase, there is difficult to set off oxidation reaction on
rake face and cutting edge because of the involvement of the
Because of the variation and discontinuous cutting character- liquid nitrogen. The oxidative wear is effectively suppressed,
istics of milling forces in a milling cycle, the cutting part of and the tool wear is reduced under high temperature.
tool will sustain the constantly changing force. Compared to Furthermore, in high-speed cutting of traditional process,
the uniform force, the thermal and mechanical acting on the because of the high temperature expansion and rebound trend,
tool has irregular elastic-plastic deformation. This change will it has bigger growth phenomenon for the force Fz. But in
lead to more severe fatigue, so the tool is easy to be worn. cryogenic cutting, the tool axial resistance and the friction
Under the action of the cryogenic, the tool edge has higher force are greatly reduced. Therefore, in this direction, the force
hardness and brittleness as illustrated in Table 1. Though the is declining (Fig. 13c), and on the flank surface the cutting
impacting force is still inevitable change, the elastic-plastic environment is improved significantly, so the tool wear is loss.
deformation degree is greatly reducing and the tool fatigue is
alleviated.
The measurement values of milling force of the two kinds
of processes are shown in Fig. 13. Compared with the tradi- 5 Conclusions
tional one, the forces Fx and Fy are significantly increased
after intervening cryogenic, as illustrated in Fig. 13a, b, but Based on the methodology applied on the present comprehen-
the force Fz is decreased (Fig. 13c). At high speed, it has more sive investigation, the following conclusions can be claimed.

(a) (b) (c)

30
200
70 normal cutting
cryogenic cutting
cryogenic cutting cryogenic cutting
normal cutting
180
60 normal cutting 25

160 50
Fx/N
Fy/N

20
Fz/N

140 40

30
120 15
20
100
10 10
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
YFPPLQ YFPPLQ YFPPLQ

Fig. 13 Effect of spindle speed on milling force, a main cutting force, b feed force, c back force
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
(1) At different cutting speeds, the viscosity flow entropy
production is decreased with the increase of wearing ca-
pacity of rake face, oxidation wear ones are increased,
and the diffusion ones are all increased firstly and then
decrease.
(2) In cryogenic processing, the steady wear is easily
achieved, and is more likely to form a self-organization
dissipative structure. As well as it clearly improved the
cutting speed with the self-organization function, and
improved the efficiency of the best processing.
(3) More than 132 m/min of traditional cutting, the tool has
not had the decrease stage with time increasing for en-
tropy production, and the tool self-organization plays no
role. Meanwhile, at speed of 220 m/min with cryogenic,
the self-organization is still working, and the tool’s ser-
vice life can be significantly extended more than three
times.
(4) The changed mechanical properties of alloy, the de-
creased cutting heat and the increased main cutting force
are the main reasons for the improved tool life and the
machining quality in cryogenic compared to the tradi-
tional process.
Acknowledgments This research was partially supported by the
National Science and Technology major projects (No.2014ZX04015021)
and the Education Department of Liaoning Province (the Science and
Technology Project, No. L2013514).
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