Computational Materials Science 16 (1999) 275±284

Modelling the orthogonal machining process using coated

carbide cutting tools
J. Monaghan 1, T. MacGinley *
Department of Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering, Metal Processing Research Unit, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

Abstract
In this paper ®nite element methods were used to determine the in¯uence of various coated and uncoated tungsten
carbide cutting tools on the machining of a nickel-based super alloy Inconel 718. Disposable coated and uncoated
carbide inserts were used both experimentally and as FEA models to study how the stress distribution within di€erent
coatings and carbide grades compared to each other, under a range of cutting conditions. Simulation of an orthogonal
metal cutting process was performed using FORGE2, an elasto-visco plastic FEA code. All FE models were assumed to
be plane strain. The results include the stress and temperature distributions through the primary shear zone, the chip/
tool contact region and the coating/substrate boundaries. The tool wear and stress results from the FE modelling agree
favourably with those obtained from experimental work. Ó 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Coated carbide cutting tools; Finite element analysis (FEA); Machining

Nomenclature K1 material consistency as a

b material e€usivity function of strain and strain
b1 , b 2 e€usivity of tool and work- rate
piece, respectively m strain rate sensitivity index
C strength coecient n strain hardening index
c 1 , c2 speci®c heat capacity of tool Q activation energy for self-dif-
and workpiece, respectively fusion
E YoungÕs modulus R gas constant
k material conductivity s deviatoric stress tensor
K material consistency as a t1 undeformed chip thickness
function of strain, strain rate t2 deformed chip thickness
and temperature T temperature (K)
W rate of heat generation due to
viscoplastic deformation
a average heat coecient be-
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +353-1-608-3430; fax: +353-1- tween the tool and workpiece
679-5554.
b ratio of activation energy for
E-mail addresses: jmonghan@tcd.ie (J. Monaghan), tmcgin-
ly@tcd.ie (T. MacGinley). self-di€usion to the universal
1
Tel.: +353-1-608-1936. gas constant

0927-0256/99/$ - see front matter Ó 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 2 7 - 0 2 5 6 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 7 0 - 1
276 J. Monaghan, T. MacGinley / Computational Materials Science 16 (1999) 275±284
DT di€erence in temperature
DV di€erence in velocity compo-
nents between the rake face
of the tool and the sliding
chip material
e material strain
e_ material strain rate
q density of material
/ shear angle
/fr heat generated due to fric-
tional sliding
g deformation eciency
t PoissonÕs ratio
r1 , r2 , r3 principal stress components
in the x-, y- z-directions, re-
spectively
ro ¯ow stress of the material
1. Introduction
A high nickel content super alloy, such as In-
conel 718, is widely used in the manufacture of
aircraft turbine engine components, liquid rockets,
cryogenic tanks, etc. These alloys possess high
yield and ultimate strengths, high fatigue strengths
and are extremely corrosive resistant [1]. However
this alloy is extremely dicult to machine [2] due
to high shear stresses, high work hardening ca-
pacities, hard abrasive carbides in the microstruc-
ture, low thermal conductivity and speci®c heat
and also because it is a gummy material with a
strong tendency to weld to the cutting tool insert
and form a built-up edge.
As a result, both the cutting forces and tem-
peratures in the cutting zone are extremely high
and therefore machining rates and tool life values
are usually low. As this study is mostly concerned
with the behaviour of coated tools subjected to
compression, tension and shear stresses then
turning is the most appropriate machining method
to illustrate these di€erent types of stresses [3].
Fig. 1 illustrates an idealised model of orthogonal
machining showing each of the di€erent defor-
mation zones.
Zone 1 is the primary shear zone where shear
takes place across the narrow plane AB at an angle
/ to the workpiece. As the materials moves from
Fig. 1. Idealised stress zones during orthogonal machining.
zones 1 to 2, the material from the shear zone
slides up the rake face of the tool. This causes
further energy to be dissipated in friction as the
chip slides relative to the tool. Sticking friction
occurs towards the bottom of the rake face and
sliding friction at the top. As the tool is not per-
fectly sharp ± it has a small corner radius, rubbing
occurs and this generates frictional heating which
further a€ects the stresses in this region. This can
be seen to occur in zone 3. The round nose of the
tool also causes frictional heating of the workpiece
materials is zone 4. Strain hardening occurs in
zone 5 caused by plastic deformation spreading
below the depth of the undeformed chip.
The use of hard ceramic coatings applied to a
tougher substrate is increasingly being used to
improve the wear resistance and the working life of
a range of engineering components. The more
popular coatings used in the metal cutting industry
include TiN, TiC, TiCN, Al2 O3 . It has been pre-
viously established [4] that the failure of any given
tool is often more dependent on the break up and
detachment of the coating rather than from ex-
cessive tool wear. Failure of the coating may arise
from either adhesive or cohesive e€ects. Cohesive
failure is generally a result of internal stresses
within the coating or at the surface of the coating
while adhesive failure generally occurs at the in-
terface between the coating layers or between the
coating and the substrate.
In order to model coating failure it is necessary
to have a detailed knowledge of both the direct
and shear stresses at the coating surface and also
 J. Monaghan, T. MacGinley / Computational Materials Science 16 (1999) 275±284
at the interface between the coating and the sub-
strate. Stresses within a coated insert can arise
from three main sources. The ®rst as residual
stresses due to the thermal mismatch between the
coating and the substrate during cooling from the
deposition process. The second as stresses arising
from the deposition process itself and the last as a
result of an externally applied load. Only the last
of these stress inducing states is addressed in this
work and as a result the insert is said to be initially
stress free ± ignoring the in¯uence of deposition
and thermal e€ects.
In this paper, the FORGE2 ®nite element code
allows for non-linear adaptive remeshing during
simulation. No prior assumptions regarding chip
geometry or material ¯ow were made. The me-
chanical and thermal properties used in the model
were obtained from experimental results and
from literature. To date, ®nite element modelling
of metal cutting has been primarily concerned
with two-dimensional orthogonal cutting with
continuous chip formation [5]. There have been
some exemptions such as the work carried out by
Ceretti et al. [6] or Hashemi et al. [7], both of
whom concentrated on segmental chip formation.
Segmental chip formation involves a process of
shear-localisation in which micro-cracks are
propagated along the shear plane. Others [8,9] are
based on the assumption that shearing/chip for-
mation initiates along some prede®ned line below
the workpiece surface and upon reaching a criti-
cal stress or strain, the node ahead of the ap-
proaching cutting tool would split into a new
surface along this line. The point at which node
splitting occurs is realistic for a particular mate-
rial, tool geometry and cutting conditions, but for
a more generalised approach to FE modelling of
metal cutting, the use of a package that incor-
porates an adaptive non-linear remeshing algo-
rithm is essential.
There has also been work done on the simula-
tion of the response of coatings on substrates un-
der various loading techniques but most [10±12]
dealt with simple Hertzian pressure distributions
simulating the normal and shear stresses associ-
ated with ¯ow of the chip over the tool. Most are
sub-models of the orthogonal machining process,
centring on the ¯ow of the chip over the rake face.
277
2. Finite element modelling
2.1. Steady state orthogonal machining of Inconel
718 using FORGE2
The cutting tool modelled with FEA was an
SNMA tungsten carbide insert with a nose radius of
0.8 mm. The ISO standard designation of SNMA
describes a rectangular insert with 6° negative rake
and 6° side clearance. The initial tool geometry was
drawn in AutoCAD and imported into FORGE2 in
IGES format. In order to compare the ®nite ele-
ment analysis results to those obtained experi-
mentally the following approach was used. All tools
were simulated having both positive and negative
rake angles of 6° with no chipbreaker. Three dif-
ferent tool groups were constructed. These were
rigid tools, uncoated deformable tools and coated
deformable tools. The workpiece was assumed to
be elasto-viscoplastic whilst the deformable tools
were assumed to be elastic. The cutting speed used
for the simulations was 330 mm/s and depth of cut
of 1 mm to mirror experimental conditions. Twenty
inserts were investigated which included 4 rigid and
16 deformable tools. The workpiece was rigidly
held as shown in Fig. 2 to prevent movement along
the non-machined surfaces. The single coated tools
shown in Fig. 3, were modelled with a coating of
TiN, Al2 O3 or TiC whilst the double coated tools
had coatings applied to match the manufacturers'
speci®cation [13,14].
2.2. Computational mechanics within FORGE2
When modelling continuous chip formation
during orthogonal cutting, the ®nite element work
Fig. 2. The set up of the meshed tool and workpiece.
278 J. Monaghan, T. MacGinley / Computational Materials Science 16 (1999) 275±284
Fig. 3. Single coated tool with 5 lm coating. Mat. 1: tungsten carbide (WC) Mat. 2: Ti N or Al2 O3 or Ti C.
was treated as a coupled thermo-mechanical
analysis. The material and heat ¯ow values were
solved independently at each time step. The results
of the material ¯ow were used to update the
workpiece geometry. Internal heat generation by
viscoplastic work and frictional sliding also en-
abled the material properties to be updated.
The ¯ow stress of the material is dependent on
the strain, strain rate and the temperature of the
workpiece. The material ¯ow stress is represented
by the equation
r0 ˆ Cen e_m ; …
where C is a strength coecient and the super-
scripts n and m are the strain hardening and the
strain rate indices, respectively. Both these values
were obtained from experimental tensile tests car-
ried out on Inconel 718. The FORGE2 code [15]
represents the material ¯ow stress using the fol-
lowing expression:
p…m‡1† n m
r0 ˆ 3 K1 e e_ ; …2†
where the consistency of the material is de®ned by
the term K1 and is as
c oT
K1 ˆ p…m‡1† ; …3†
3
where c is the heat capacity of the material. K1
relates the deviatoric stress tensor s to the strain
rate tensor e through the following expression:
 p …m‡1†
_ T
s ˆ 2K e; e; 3e_ _
e; …4†
where K is a temperature related material consis-
tency. The dependence of the material consistency
on temperature can be expressed using the
Arrhenius law:
K1 ˆ Keb=T ; …5†
where
Q
bˆ ; …6†
R
Q is the activation energy for self-di€usion and R
1† is the universal gas constant. b can also be found
experimentally by means of tensile tests performed
at di€erent temperatures and di€erent strain rates.
Linear regression can then be used to obtain the
slope (b) from a graph of ln (r0 ) VÕs (1/T).
Contact between the cutting tool and the
workpiece material was characterised by a com-
bined Coulomb±Tresca friction law. The temper-
ature change in the system was a result of the
competition between the internal heat conduction
and internal heat dissipation. This heat balance
equation for the system can be written as
qc ˆ div …k grad T † ‡ W : …7†
ot
The left-hand side of the equation represents the
temperature change, whilst the right-hand side
represents internal conduction with W being the
internal heat generated by viscoplastic deforma-
tion. This internal heat generated was calculated
using a Norton±Ho€ law:
 J. Monaghan, T. MacGinley / Computational Materials Science 16 (1999) 275±284
p m‡1
W ˆ gK 3e_ ; …
where g is the deformation eciency, K the con-
sistency, e_ is the strain rate and m being the sen-
sitivity to strain rate. Frictional heat ¯ux at the
tool/workpiece interface is shared according to
their respective e€usivities. The heat generated by
frictional sliding is represented by the expression
b1
/fr ˆ  a  K  DV m‡1 ; …
b 1 ‡ b2
where b1 is the tool material e€usivity, b2 the
workpiece material e€usivity, a being the heat
transfer coecient between the tool and the ma-
terial, K the consistency, DV the di€erence in ve-
locity between the tool and the workpiece and m is
the sensitivity due to strain rate. The e€usivity of a
component can be calculated as follows:
p
b ˆ k  q  c; …10†
where k is the conductivity, q the density and c is
the speci®c heat capacity of the material.
2.3. Numerical inputs for FORGE2
The work material consisted of an Inconel 718
alloy bar, a half metre in length and 100 mm in
diameter. It was supplied as precipitation hard-
ened (aged) material of AMS 5663 speci®cation
with a hardness of 550HV. Various coated and
uncoated inserts from two tool manufacturers
were tested. Tool geometry was standardised on
square inserts without chipbreakers (SNMA
120408) in order to facilitate a study of compara-
tive coating/carbide grade performance. The ma-
terial properties of the substrate and the three
ceramic coatings are given in Table 1.
All turning tests were carried out on a URSUS
225 centre lathe. The spindle speed was selected to
Table 1
Materials properties used in the ®nite element analysis
YoungÕs modulus (N/mm2 )
3
94% WC & 6% Co (Substrate) 640  10
TiC 450  103
TiN 250  103
Al2 O3 390  103
279
give a cutting speed of 20 m/min. The feed rate
8†
remained constant at 0.24 mm/rev. A depth of cut
of 1 mm was chosen so that the results could be
correlated against the ®nite element results. The
tool holder used was model PSSNR 2020K12 with
a plan approach angle of 45°. For the purpose of
measuring the cutting forces the toolholder was
mounted on a Kistler 9263A piezoelectric tool-
force dynamometer connected to three Kistler
9† 5006 charge ampli®ers. The output from these was
passes to an Amplicon PC26AT Analog/Digital
input board. A Windows-based data acquisition
package, DASH 300, was used to obtain readings
of the axial, radial and tangential components of
the cutting forces from the PC26AT A/D con-
verter.
3. Results
3.1. Comparative study of ®nite element results
The vertical or tangential cutting force ob-
tained from the experimental tests in Fig. 4(a) and
can be seen to have an average value of approxi-
mately 1350 N. The results given in Fig. 4(b) show
the predicted tangential force from FORGE2 to
be approximately 1200 N, and this is within 12%
of the experimental value. The di€erence between
the experimental and FEA results can be ex-
plained in various ways. The ®rst being that In-
conel is a very gummy material that will stick to
the tool and forms a stable built-up edge on the
cutting tool tip. One e€ect of this BUE is to in-
crease the cutting forces. The FORGE2 model did
not take this BUE into account and hence un-
derestimates the magnitude of the cutting force.
Comparing the experimental and FEA values for
the axial cutting forces shows a di€erence of 5%
between these results.
PoissonÕs ration Coecient of thermal expansion
0.26 5:4  10ÿ6
0.19 7:2  10ÿ6
0.25 9:3  10ÿ6
0.23 9:0  10ÿ6
280 J. Monaghan, T. MacGinley / Computational Materials Science 16 (1999) 275±284

Four rigid geometries were considered. As

shown in Fig. 6(a) and (b) these had positive and
negative rake angles of 6°, each with and without a
chipbreaker. The predicted abrasive wear on each
tool can be seen in Fig. 6(a) and (b). Comparing
the four diagrams, it can be seen that the abrasive
wear is greatest on the negative rake cutting tools.
This is due to the increased normal stress on the
rake face of negative rake tools compared to that
(a)
of positive rake cutting tools. For tools with a
chipbreaker, the positive rake tool sustains little
crater wear, but in the case of the negative rake
tool, the crater wear increases and spreads up the
rake face. Also noticed is that areas of common
high wear occur on the land and also at the exit of
the chipbreaker. For the tools without a chip-
breaker, the wear pattern acts mainly over the rake
face. The wear is a maximum on the rake face just
past the nose radius where the normal stress is
expected to be a maximum. This is due to the
combined e€ects of friction and deformation as-
sociated with the primary shear zone (Fig. 1).

(b) 3.3. Deformable cutting tools

Fig. 4. (a) Experimental tangential cutting force. (b) Finite el-
FEA simulations were carried out in which the
ement tangential cutting force.
cutting tool was allowed to deform elastically in
order to estimate the stresses acting upon the insert
3.2. Wear simulations during the machining operation. Fig. 7 shows the
equivalent stress pattern obtained for an uncoated
The wear function U is expressed as tool with a negative rake face without a chip-
breaker. As can be seen from Fig. 7, areas of high
Z t
localised stress are to be found around the nose
Uˆ rn Vt dt; …11† radius of the tool where a maximum equivalent
0
stress of 3149 MPa occurred. As the material ¯ows
where rn is the normal stress and Vt is the tan- through the primary shear zone and up along the
gential sliding velocity as shown in Fig. 5. rake face, high stresses are generated. Conse-
quently these high local stresses around the nose of
the tool can lead to rapid tool wear and premature
failure.

3.4. Coated deformable cutting tools

Simulations were also performed in which ce-

ramic coatings were applied to the tool mentioned
in the previous section. This was done to deter-
mine if this coating protected the tool from the
Fig. 5. Diagram of how the wear function U is calculated. various stresses acting upon it. For the case of a
 J. Monaghan, T. MacGinley / Computational Materials Science 16 (1999) 275±284 281

(a)

(b)
Fig. 6. (a) Tool wear on positive and negative rake tools without chipbreaker. (b) Tool wear on positive and negative rake tools with
chipbreaker.

Fig. 7. Equivalent stresses in the uncoated deformable cutting tool.

single coated TiN insert, it can be seen in Fig. 8 which is in the corner radius of the substrate.
that the maximum equivalent stress occurs at the However the maximum stress in the tool decreases
same location as on the uncoated tool (Fig. 7), from 3149 to 1737 MPa due to the addition of this
282 J. Monaghan, T. MacGinley / Computational Materials Science 16 (1999) 275±284
Fig. 8. Equivalent stresses in the single coated deformable cutting tool.
single coat of TiN. One reason for this decrease in
stress is that a TiN coating has very high lubricity
which resists the formation of a built-up edge and
also decreases friction along the rake face. There-
fore stresses are accordingly lower. It can also be
seen from Figs. 7 and 8 that the stresses in the
workpiece for both the uncoated and coated de-
formable tool models remain the same at about
700 MPa. Therefore the same strain is being gen-
erated in the workpiece, but a di€erent strain oc-
curs in each type of tool and this must be due to
the coating.
Another reason for the reduced stress is
the di€erence in the value for YoungÕs mod-
ulus between the coating and the substrate. For
the same value of strain, or displacement, the
stresses are proportional to the sti€ness of the
materials. Hence the sti€er the material, the higher
the stress in that material for the same amount of
de¯ection.
Simulations were also performed in which two
di€erent layers of ceramic were applied on the
tungsten carbide substrate. The outermost layer
was TiN and the inner layer was Al2 O3 . As can be
seen from Fig. 9, a maximum equivalent stress of
1749 MPa also occurred on the nose radius of the
substrate.
4. Discussion
The results of the ®nite element modelling in-
dicate that the orthogonal machining process with
continuous chip formation can indeed be modelled
with FORGE2. However the error between the
®nite element results and the experimental test
results can be explained in a number of ways.
Initially the tool is said to be stress free. That is, no
residual stresses arise from the mismatch of the
coecients of thermal expansions for the di€erent
materials. The underlying mechanics associated
with the interfacial fracture of two elastic solids
has been shown to be a mixed-mode fracture
process [16]. Consequently it is important to know
the direct and shear stresses between the coating
and substrate, the coating surface and the layers in
between the coatings. The ®nite element results
indicate that the ratio between the elastic moduli
(Table 1) for the substrate and the coatings has a
signi®cant in¯uence on the stress states. It was also
 J. Monaghan, T. MacGinley / Computational Materials Science 16 (1999) 275±284
Fig. 9. Equivalent stresses in the double coated deformable cutting tool.
found that the thickness and type of coating in-
¯uenced the stresses at the various interfaces.
The value of the tangential stress at the surface
and over the various interfaces of a coated com-
ponent has a signi®cant in¯uence on the working
life of the component. If this tangential stress is
highly compressive, it can lead to buckling, and if
tensile, it can lead to detachment of the coatings.
In all of the coating systems investigated the
magnitude of the tangential stress decreased with
increasing distance below the outer surface of the
tool. However due to the sti€ness of the substrate,
the maximum equivalent stress occurs in the sub-
strate for all models simulated.
For all coated deformable models, the tangen-
tial stress was compressive between the substrate
and innermost coating and so the coating would
have failed by buckling. Experimental results from
earlier work [17,18] have shown that uncoated
tools fail ISO test standards of 0.3 mm ¯ank wear
[19] after only three minutes whereas coated tools
last approximately for 14 min before failing at the
same cutting speeds and depth of cut. This is due
to the protection a€orded by the coatings.
283
5. Conclusions
This work has demonstrated that ®nite ele-
ment analysis can be adapted to e€ectively model
a metal cutting process. The results of the ®nite
element models correlated closely with those of
the experimental cutting tests. Detailed stress
distributions were plotted throughout the chip
and deformable tools for the various tool ge-
ometries modelled. Distinctive shear zones were
produced using both positive and negative rake
cutting tools. It was shown that the magnitude of
the equivalent stress was greatest when machin-
ing with a negative rake tool without a chip-
breaker.
After depositing a single coating on the surface
of the deformable tool and rerunning the simula-
tion, it was discovered that the stress within the
tool decreased, whilst the stress acting on the
workpiece remained on the whole, unchanged.
This was due to a reduced friction coecient with
the titanium nitride along with it being a less rigid
material. It was also shown that the maximum
equivalent stress occurred in the same location on
284 J. Monaghan, T. MacGinley / Computational Materials Science 16 (1999) 275±284
all three deformable models, namely on the nose
radius of the substrate.
Acknowledgements
The authors are very grateful to Materials Ire-
land Metal Processing Research Unit at Trinity
College, Dublin for their continued technical and
®nancial support.
References
[1] American Society for Metals, Machining Dicult Alloys,
ISBN 0198590202.
[2] M. Alauddin, M.A. Baradie, End-milling machinability of
Inconel 718, in: Proceedings of the Institution of Mechan-
ical Engineers, IMechE 1996, vol. 210, 1996.
[3] R. Komanduri, T.A. Schroeder, On shear instability in
machining a nickel±iron base superalloy, Journal of
Engineering for Industry 108 (1986) 93±100.
[4] J. Monaghan, M. Murphy, An analysis of the stress
distribution within the layers of multi-coated forming and
cutting tools, Frontiers for Engineering Materials, Key
Engineering Materials, vol. 118/119, pp. 131±138.
[5] K. Komvopoulos, S.A. Erpenbeck, Finite element model-
ling of orthogonal metal cutting, Journal of Engineering
for Industry 113 (1991) 253±267.
[6] E. Ceretti, P. Fallbohmer, W.T. Wu, T. Altan, Application
of 2D FEM to chip formation in orthogonal cutting, Journal
of Materials Processing Technology 59 (1996) 169±180.
[7] J. Hashemi, A.A. Tseng, P.C. Chou, Finite element
modelling of segmented chip formation in high speed
orthogonal cutting, Journal of Material Engineering and
Performance 3 (5) (1994) 712±721.
[8] A.J. Shih, Finite element simulation of orthogonal metal
cutting, Journal of Engineering for Industry 117 (1995)
84±93.
[9] B. Zhang, A. Bagchi, Finite element simulation of chip
formation and comparison with machining experiment,
Journal of Engineering for Industry 116 (1994) 289±297.
[10] K. Komvopoulos, Finite element analysis if a layered
elastic solid in normal contact with a rigid surface, Journal
of Tribology 110 (1988) 477±485.
[11] H. Djabella, R.D. Arnell, Finite element analysis of the
contact stresses in elastic coating/substrate under normal
and tangential load, Thin Solid Films 224 (1993) 87±97.
[12] H. Djabella, R.D. Arnell, Finite element analysis of
contact stresses in elastic double-layer systems under
normal load, Thin Solid Films 223 (1993) 98±108.
[13] Sandvik Coromant. Metal Working Products 93/94 ±
Turning Tools, Reference Guide.
[14] Krupp Widia, Widia Inserts: The Complete Range, Ref-
erence Guide.
[15] FORGE2 Reference Manual, Transvalor, Sophia Anti-
polis.
[16] A.G. Evans, J.W. Hutchinson, International Journal Solids
Structures 20 (1988).
[17] T. MacGinley, J. Monaghan, An investigation into tool
wear whilst machining nickel based super alloys using
carbide cutting tools, in: Proceedings of the 14th Confer-
ence of the Irish manufacturing Committee (IMC14),
1997.
[18] T. MacGinley, J. Monaghan, A ®nite element investigation
into orthogonal machining using coated carbide cutting
tools, in: Proceedings of the 15th Conference of the Irish
manufacturing Committee (IMC15), 1998.
[19] International Standards Organisation, Tool Life testing
with single point cutting tools, ISO 3685, 1997.