M. R.

Movahhedy
Assistant Professor,
Numerical Analysis of Metal
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Sharif University of Technology,
Cutting With Chamfered
Tehran, Iran
and Blunt Tools
Y. Altintas In high speed machining of hard materials, tools with chamfered edge and materials
Professor and ASME fellow resistant to diffusion wear are commonly used. In this paper, the influence of cutting edge
geometry on the chip removal process is studied through numerical simulation of cutting
M. S. Gadala with sharp, chamfered or blunt edges and with carbide and CBN tools. The analysis is
Professor based on the use of ALE finite element method for continuous chip formation process.
Simulations include cutting with tools of different chamfer angles and cutting speeds. The
Department of Mechanical Engineering, study shows that a region of trapped material zone is formed under the chamfer and acts
The University of British Columbia, as the effective cutting edge of the tool, in accordance with experimental observations.
2324 Main Mall, While the chip formation process is not significantly affected by the presence of the
Vancouver, Canada chamfer, the cutting forces are increased. The effect of cutting speed on the process is also
studied. 关DOI: 10.1115/1.1445147兴

1 Introduction and temperature at different feed rates are incorporated, the

ploughing forces are negligible, and thus, the extrapolation
The productivity in high speed machining is hindered mainly
method is incorrect. Elanayar and Shin 关6兴 developed a procedure
by chatter vibrations and tool life. Once the chatter is eliminated,
for separation of ploughing forces by accounting for the change in
the material removal rate is constrained by the tool wear and
the state of indentation of the rigid tool into the work piece. Mont-
thermo-mechanical stresses in the cutting edge, which are depen-
gomery and Altintas 关7兴 included the contribution of ploughing
dent on tool geometry, tool and work material compositions, cut-
forces to cutting forces in dynamic milling. Waldorf et al. 关8兴
ting speed and chip load 关1兴. investigated the identification of ploughing forces by contrasting
Two common modes of tool failures in high speed machining two models of material flow, one based on the presence of a sepa-
are tool breakage and diffusion wear. In the former, the sharp edge ration point and the other based on the existence of a stable
of the tool is chipped due to high stresses, while in the latter, the built-up edge.
tool edge is quickly worn out due to breaking of material bonds at When a chamfer is introduced to the tool edge, the chamfered
high temperatures. One way of preventing tool breakage is to edge acts as the primary rake of the tool with a limited length and
strengthen the tool edge by creating a chamfer at the edge, or at a relatively large negative rake angle ␣ 1 . The main rake of the
selecting a speed and chip load that keeps the thermo-mechanical tool becomes the secondary rake at a positive, neutral or slightly
stresses within a safe level. Also, the diffusion wear of the tool negative angle ␣ 1 , as shown in Fig. 1. The chamfer enhances the
might be slowed down if the cutting speed and chip load are performance of the tool by strengthening the edge and reducing
selected in a way that the tool-chip interface temperature remains the possibility of breakage. However, it is experimentally ob-
under the critical diffusion limits of tool binding materials. In served that the mechanism of cutting with chamfered tool in-
industry, either micro grain carbides or tool materials with higher
resistance to diffusion such as cubic boron nitride 共CBN兲 are used
in high speed machining. Both tools are used with negative cham-
fer edges in order to absorb high thermo-mechanical stresses in
high speed machining of hardened steels.
Researchers have investigated the effect of tool edge geometry
on the chip removal process. The force contribution due to finite
edge radius, i.e., the ‘‘ploughing force,’’ is dependent on its size. It
is generally believed that the edge or ploughing forces do not
contribute directly to the chip removal process, but their presence
affects surface integrity and residual stresses in the machined sur-
face. Furthermore, it is known that the magnitude of such forces is
dependent on the size of the flank wear of the tool.
Since it is very difficult to measure ploughing forces directly,
they are usually extracted from total cutting forces based on an
analytical or empirical model. A common approach for identifica-
tion of ploughing forces is based on extrapolation of forces mea-
sured at various uncut chip thickness to zero thickness 关2兴. How-
ever, some experimental observations show that this approach
may amount to considerable overestimation of ploughing forces
关3兴. Analytical models based on plasticity theory have also been
presented for identification of these forces 共e.g. 关4兴兲. Stevenson
and Stephenson 关5兴 concluded from their cutting tests on zinc that
when the effects of variation of variables such as strain, strain rate

Contributed by the Manufacturing Engineering Division for publication in the

JOURNAL OF MANUFACTURING SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING. Manuscript received Fig. 1 Schematic view of cutting process with a chamfered
May 2000; Revised June 2001. Associate Editor: S. G. Kapoor. tool

178 Õ Vol. 124, MAY 2002 Copyright © 2002 by ASME Transactions of the ASME
volves creation of a dead metal zone of hardened work material,
which is trapped under the chamfer and almost completely fills the
chamfer. Such dead zone acts as the effective cutting edge of the
tool, and thus protects the tool surface from wearing under heavy
cutting conditions. The drawbacks of cutting with dead metal zone
on the chamfered edge are that the forces on the tool are in-
creased, and dimensional accuracy may be compromised due to
cutting with the dead zone whose size may vary during cutting.
There have been a number of experimental and analytical stud-
ies on the effect of chamfer on the performance of the cutting tool.
Hirao et al. 关9兴 and Zhang et al. 关10兴 observed from experiments
that the chip thickness is not affected by the chamfer angle be-
cause the dead metal zone effectively replaces the missing nose
of the chamfered edge. They also observed that the chamfer
angle strongly affects the thrust force on the tool, and to a lesser
degree, the cutting force. Recently, Ren and Altintas 关11兴 proposed
a slip-line field solution and laid out a predictive model of cutting
with chamfered tools based on minimum energy and identification
of material flow stress as a function of strain, strain rate and
temperature.
In spite of the increasing importance of chamfered-edge tools,
relatively little research has been done toward better understand-
ing of the mechanism of chip formation in cutting with such tools,
and on the effects of tool edge geometry on cutting variables. This
paper presents a finite element based numerical analysis of con-
tinuous chip formation process in cutting with chamfered-edge
tools.
2 Numerical Simulation
2.1 Numerical Approach. Numerical simulation of the cut-
ting process can provide an in-depth analysis of the process in-
cluding the detailed distribution of process variables such as ve-
locity, strain, stress and temperature, and the ability to apply
sophisticated material and friction models. However, modeling
this process is often a numerical challenge due to the very com-
plex set of conditions present in a tiny shear zone and along the
chip-tool interface, where material is severely deformed at high
strain rate and temperature. Two different finite element ap-
proaches have been traditionally used in modeling the cutting pro-
cess, the Lagrangian formulation, and the Eulerian formulation. In
the former, the finite element mesh is attached to the material
points and deforms as the material is deformed, while in the latter,
the mesh is spatially fixed and acts as a control volume through
which the material flows.
A critical review of the literature on numerical simulation of
this process shows that the conventional Lagrangian and Eulerian
formulations are generally inefficient for this purpose. Due to very
large deformation of material in the cutting zone, problems such
as mesh distortion and load fluctuation often arise in applying the
Lagrangian formulation. Furthermore, in a Lagrangian simulation,
the cutting action of the tool is often simulated by way of sepa-
rating the nodes in front of the tool along a pre-defined parting
line 关12–14兴. It is argued 关15兴 that such an approach is inherently
inadequate for cutting processes, because it essentially treats the
plastic flow of the material around the tool tip as elastic crack
propagation, since a crack will always run ahead of the tool. In the
more recent Lagrangian literature, the cutting action is modeled
by continuous remeshing of the cutting zone 关16 –17兴. The Eule-
rian approach, on the other hand, may efficiently model the flow
of material around the tool tip, because the Eulerian mesh is spa-
tially fixed and no distortion occurs. However, in this approach,
the boundaries of the material domain should be known a priori.
Therefore, the natural formation of a chip as a result of uncon-
strained flow on free boundaries may not be modeled directly, and
iterative updating of free boundaries outside solution domain is
required 关18 –19兴. Further critical reviews of both Lagrangian and
Eulerian formulations can be found in Movahhedy et al. 关15兴.
An alternative approach that has the potential of combining the
strengths of both conventional approaches in a single analysis
Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering
while avoiding their drawbacks is the Arbitrary Lagrangian-
Eulerian 共ALE兲 formulation. The ALE is a general formulation in
which the FE mesh is neither attached to the material nor fixed in
space. Instead, it may have an independent and arbitrary motion
prescribed by the analyst. Such flexibility of the ALE approach in
adaptation of the FE mesh provides a powerful tool in performing
many difficult analyses. For example, in the cutting problem, if
the mesh around the tool tip is fixed spatially as in an Eulerian
analysis, and the mesh on the free boundaries of the chip is al-
lowed to follow material deformation, as in a Lagrangian analysis,
both features of the cutting process can be modeled efficiently. A
few ALE analyses of cutting process have appeared in the litera-
ture in recent years 关20–21兴. Recently, Movahhedy et al. 关22兴
simulated the orthogonal metal cutting process using a thermo-
mechanical ALE formulation. In this paper, the same ALE ap-
proach is used to investigate the influence of the tool edge geom-
etry on the chip formation process. It is noteworthy that such a
cutting process in which the tool is not sharp cannot be simulated
by a Lagrangian analysis with node separation, because in such
cases there is no clear parting line along which nodes may be
separated. In the ALE analysis, on the other hand, such geometric
features pose no difficulty, because the cutting action is modeled
as continuous flow of material around the tool edge.
2.2 ALE Formulation and Procedures. In an ALE analy-
sis, two sets of coordinate systems are defined; one is attached to
the material and moving with material deformation, while the
other is an independent computational system that moves arbi-
trarily according to a user-defined mesh motion scheme. There-
fore, the ALE finite element equation involves two sets of veloci-
ties, material velocity v, and mesh velocity v̄. Although these
velocities are in general independent from each other, there exists
a one-to-one mapping between material and computational do-
mains, provided that the Jacobian of the mapping function is non-
zero. The mapping between material and computational domains
is expressed in terms of the relationship between the time deriva-
tives of a function g(x) in the computational reference system and
the material reference system;
g ⬘ ⫽ġ⫹ 共 v̄⫺v兲 •ⵜg (1)
where g ⬘ and ġ are computational and material time derivatives,
respectively, and ⵜ is the gradient operator. Equation 共1兲 makes it
possible to track the material deformation history in the ALE
analysis. Using Eq. 共1兲, the principle of virtual work for deforma-
tion in an increment from time t to time t⫹⌬t may be cast in the
standard form of finite element equation:
Km v⫹Kc 共 v̄⫺v兲 ⫽f (2)
m c
where K is the Lagrangian tangent stiffness matrix, K is the
stiffness matrix resulting from mesh motion, and f is vector of rate
of incremental load. This equation yields N unsymmetrical equa-
tions in 2N unknown variables. To solve this equation, supple-
mentary equations are provided by prescribing mesh velocities by
defining a mesh motion scheme which handles assignment of
mesh velocities at each incremental step of the analysis. Such
supplementary equations are treated on the element level so that
the mesh velocities are eliminated from Eq. 共2兲 before solving it.
Further details on the procedure of assigning mesh velocities and
the specific mesh motion scheme used in the cutting simulations
may be found in 关23–24兴.
The solution of FE equations also involves a thermal analysis
which accounts for temperature rise in the tool and the workpiece
and changes to material properties. The thermal and deformation
process are coupled here using a staggered approach. Finally, a
direct node-to surface contact algorithm is used to model the con-
tact conditions at the tool-chip interface. This algorithm treats the
tool as a rigid body and applies contact conditions as boundary
conditions on the surface of the chip. Further details of the pro-
posed ALE method and the contact algorithm can be found
in 关22兴.
MAY 2002, Vol. 124 Õ 179
 2.3 Finite Element Model and Mesh Motion Scheme. The
focus of this article is on the modeling of tools with chamfered
edges, which are commonly used in high speed machining of
hardened tool and die steels. The typical finite element model used
in this work for simulation of cutting with chamfered edge tools
consists of around 750 six-node triangular elements for modeling
the workpiece and the tool. The tool is assumed to be rigid, and its
mesh is only used for calculation of temperature field. The com-
mon assumption of a rigid tool is justified on the grounds that in
the study of chip removal process, the small- and often elastic-
deformation in the tool is negligible compared to very large de-
formation in the chip. Nevertheless, the stresses in the tool are
important in the study of tool performance, and the inclusion of
tool deformation in the analysis is a logical extension of the cur-
rent study. The mesh is sufficiently refined around the tool tip and
under the chamfer so that the high gradients of solution variables
in these regions can be accurately represented. A fillet of very
small radius is added to the flank of the tool to account for the
finite radius of this edge, and the interaction of the material with
the flank of the tool may be modeled. The analysis is performed
under plane strain conditions. The chip is assumed to be continu-
ous in accordance with experimental observations.
The mesh motion scheme for simulation of the chip formation
process consists of using an Eulerian type of motion around the
tool tip so that continuous flow of material around the tip can be
modeled, while a Lagrangian type of motion is used in modeling
of unconstrained flow on the free boundaries, which defines the
shape and size of the chip. Since the steady state of cutting is of
interest in this work, the analysis is started from a model which
includes a small pre-assumed chip of arbitrary thickness and
shape. Although this assumption is similar to the common as- Fig. 2 Initial and final chip shape in a typical ALE analysis of
cutting process
sumption in Eulerian analysis, it does not preclude the free for-
mation of the chip, because the deformation process automatically
corrects the assumed geometry as part of the solution. Neverthe-
less, there will be a transient stage in which the initial chip will 3 Experimental Work and Model Input Data
evolve into its proper shape and size, and the variables reach
steady state. It should be noted that here, the process is assumed to A series of orthogonal cutting tests with chamfered carbide and
reach steady state when continuation of the analysis produces in- CBN tools was performed previously by Ren and Altintas 关11兴.
significant changes in process variables. In other words, it is a Disks made of P20 mold steel were turned in plunge orthogonal
numerical convergence criterion, and does not correspond to the mode on a CNC turning center, and cutting forces, chip thickness
length that a material should be cut to reach steady state. and contact length were measured in each case. In the first set of
Figure 2 shows an example of the initial and final chip shapes. tests, blank carbide tools of ISO S10 class were ground with dif-
It may be seen that while the mesh on the tool surface remain ferent chamfer angles ␣ 1 and lengths b c f as listed in Table 1. The
regular, the chip evolves naturally and automatically to its final disks were turned at a chip load of 0.1 mm and two cutting speeds
of 240 and 600 m/min. The main rake angle of the tool was 0 deg
shape and size. The density of the mesh around the shear plane
in all cases. In the second set of tests, Mitsubishi MB820 CBN
remains unchanged throughout the analysis irrespective of large
inserts with main rake angles of ⫺5 deg, chamfer angle of ⫺25
material deformation there. The chip is seen to acquire a fairly
deg, and chamfer length of 0.1 mm were used to cut P20 disks at
constant thickness following a short transient stage. The thermal
three different cutting speeds of 240, 600, and 1000 m/min. The
process, on the other hand, is started by assuming that the material uncut chip thickness in the second set of tests was 0.06 mm. The
is at room temperature. While this assumption indirectly influ- composition of the CBN tools used in experiments was 50 percent
ences the deformation process due to temperature effects on ma- CBN and 50 percent 共TiN and Al2 O3 兲. The produced chip was
terial properties, such effects are not considered significant in the continuous in all cases.
final chip shape, because the temperature rises very quickly in the The material flow stress model for P20 steel was provided by
shear deformation zones. The tail of the chip in Fig. 2 corresponds the ERC Net Shape Manufacturing group in Ohio State University
to the transient stage of chip formation, and it is expected that the 关25兴. This model is obtained 关26兴 by fitting data from cutting
effects of assumptions about initial chip shape and temperature tests to a rate and temperature dependent flow stress model in the
distribution are reflected in this part of the chip only. Neverthe- form of
less, the thermal process has a transient nature throughout the
analysis. Convective boundary condition is applied on the free ¯ m 兲共 1⫹C ln ␧ថ 兲共 D⫺ET * n 兲
¯␴ ⫽ 共 A⫹B␧
side of the chip. Since only a very small portion of the tool is
included in the model, the right side of the tool is assumed to be
in an adiabatic state. Table 1 Tool edge geometry in cutting tests with carbide tools
The above finite element model is used in the following sec-
tions to investigate the effects of geometric features of the cutting
tool by simulating tools with a sharp, chamfered, or blunt edge. In
each case, the material and frictional characteristics are adopted
from the literature, and the solution variables are verified against
the available experimental results.

180 Õ Vol. 124, MAY 2002 Transactions of the ASME

 Table 2 Material and thermal properties of the tool
where A⫽178.5 MPa, B⫽462.4 MPa, C⫽0.0438, D⫽1.51, and
E⫽0.99 are the coefficients of equation for the material consid-
ered, the strain sensitivity parameter m is equal to 0.169, the vari-
able T * is defined as
T⫺T room
T *⫽
T melting ⫺T room
where T melting ⫽1480°C for P20, and temperature sensitivity pa-
rameter is n⫽0.666. The range of validity of this equation is
given as 0.9⭐␧ ¯ ⭐1.5, 2⫻104 ⭐␧ថ ⭐8⫻105 s⫺1 , and 600⭐T
⭐1200°C. Nevertheless, in the absence of other data, this equa-
tion has been used in the simulations here for strain and tempera-
ture values higher than the above ranges. The other mechanical
and thermal properties of the workpiece and tool material are
adopted from reference 关26兴, as reported in Table 2. The chamfer
length in all simulations with the carbide tool is assumed to be
0.09 mm. The shear type of friction is used in the sticking zone on
the rake face. The sticking regime is assumed to exist over the part
of the interface where frictional shear stress exceeds the shear
strength of the material. In the sliding zone, the Coulomb friction
law is used with a mean friction coefficient obtained from the
ratio of experimental thrust and cutting forces in orthogonal cut-
ting tests with nominally sharp tools under similar cutting condi-
tions 关11兴. Although this approach involves some approximation,
notably that the forces include the effects of both sticking and
sliding regions, it is thought that after subtraction of the edge
forces, the resulting mean coefficient of friction will be still more
realistic than handbook values obtained under totally different cir-
cumstances. Furthermore, if the edge forces are overestimated as
argued in reference 关3兴, the effect of sticking region in the net
forces is further reduced. It must be noted that the accuracy of the
material data and sliding friction coefficient is most important for
a reliable numerical simulation of the process. In this work, both
parameters were evaluated based on orthogonal cutting tests, as
opposed to material tests which are sometimes used in metal
forming analysis where the strain rates are not as high as in metal
cutting.
4 Results and Discussion
4.1 Influence of Chamfer Angle on Chip Formation Pro-
cess. The effects of the chamfer angle on the chip formation
process is analyzed by comparing the results of cutting simula-
tions in which cutting conditions are held constant but chamfer
angles are varied. Three chamfer angles of ⫺10 deg, ⫺25 deg,
and ⫺35 deg are modeled and compared with the cutting process
with a ‘‘sharp’’ tool. Since all tool edges have a finite radius, the
sharp tool may be defined as a tool with an edge radius that is at
least one order of magnitude smaller than the uncut chip thick-
ness. In addition, cutting by a tool with a ‘‘blunt’’ edge is also
modeled as a tool that has an edge radius of the same order of
magnitude as the uncut chip thickness. The blunt tool model can
also be used as an approximation for the common situation when
the original sharp tool has been blunted due to wearing of the edge
after some length of cutting, although tool wear is not uniform and
Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering
is expected to be concentrated on the flank side. In the simulation,
the edge radius of the worn tool is assumed to be 0.075 mm for an
uncut chip thickness of 0.1 mm.
4.1.1 On the Existence of the Dead Metal Zone. Of particu-
lar interest in the study of cutting with chamfered tools is the
existence of the dead metal zone under the tool chamfer. Earlier
experimental studies report that the dead metal zone is formed
under the chamfer independent of the cutting conditions and
chamfer angle and that it almost completely fills the missing nose
and acts as the effective cutting edge for the tool. The existence of
such a dead zone may be investigated by studying the velocity
profile of the work material around the tool edge. Figure 3 shows
the velocity field for different chamfer angles as well as for the
blunttool. It is seen that in all cases, part of the material is trapped
and becomes stagnant under the chamfer. To be more precise, the
material in the trapped region has a small velocity, much smaller
than the cutting speed. In this work, the cut-off velocity for inter-
preting the status of the material as being stagnant is 10 percent of
the cutting speed. The size of the trapped material zones where the
material velocity is so small, shown in dark color in the contour
plots, is dependent on the chamfer angle. This zone almost fills the
missing nose, except for its lower portion on the flank radius, and
its shape is consistent with quick stop tests of Hirao et al. 关9兴. The
dead zone is also formed on the nose of the blunt tool in the same
way as for the chamfered tool, which supports the assumption of
formation of BUE for large edge-radius tools as discussed by
Waldorf et al. 关8兴. In general, it is seen in the figures that the work
material velocity increases from 共almost兲 stagnation around the
dead zone to the work velocity under the tool flank, indicating a
large degree of straining at this region, which may be considered
as an extended tertiary deformation zone. It is also observed that
the tip of the dead zone may not be at the same level of the flank
of the tool, which causes considerable friction between the tool
flank and the machined surface and results in an accelerated tool
flank wear, leading to dimensional inaccuracy. In fact, the surface
finish may be greatly dependent on the shape and size of the dead
zone. Jacobson et al. 关27兴 report that various types of dead zones
on the tool may become occasionally unstable or change in form
and size, and sometimes disintegrate fully or partially resulting in
deposits on the cut surface. Nevertheless, the dead zone on the
chamfered edge seems to be much more stable than a built up
edge on a sharp tool, though it is possible that its size might
change during cutting.
The influence of chamfer angle on cutting variables is demon-
strated in Fig. 4 where distributions of effective stress and effec-
tive plastic strain rate contours are plotted for three different
chamfer angles. The shear zone is evident in these figures which,
consistent with experimental observations, is of triangular shape
emanating from the tool tip, and widening toward the free surface
at the back of the chip. The effective stress, which exhibits the
combined effects of strain, strain rate and temperature, increases
as the material moves toward the center of the shear zone due to
strain and strain rate hardening until it reaches a maximum at the
center of the shear zone. The stress has a fairly constant value
along the center of the shear zone, but has lower values close to
the tool tip where significant temperature rise softens the material
considerably. The strain rate distribution has very large values at
the flank of the tool where the work material is extruded under the
trapped dead zone. It then drops quickly to much smaller values,
and is almost constant for a large part of the length of the shear
zone. The strain rate is also relatively high on the lower portion of
the secondary rake face. It is interesting to note that for large
chamfer angles, this variable has small values on the tool chamfer
where the dead zone is stagnated on the tool chamfer. Instead the
straining occurs around the outer perimeter of the dead zone.
The stress and strain rate distributions show little dependency
on the chamfer angle. The size and shape of the shear zone and
the values of stress and strain rate are similar in all cases. Also the
chip thickness, and thus the shear angle, is of almost the same
MAY 2002, Vol. 124 Õ 181
 Fig. 3 Velocity field on the chamfered edge of tools with different chamfer
angles shows the presence of a stagnated metal zone. From top and left: À10
deg, À25 deg, À35 deg chamfer angles, worn tool of radius 0.075 mm. Veloci-
ties are in mmÕs.

Fig. 4 Distributions of effective stress „top… and plastic strain rate „bottom…
for different chamfer angles

182 Õ Vol. 124, MAY 2002 Transactions of the ASME

 Fig. 5 Distribution of ␴ xx for sharp and chamfered tools of various chamfer
angles
value in all cases. Such independence of the cutting process from
the chamfer angle is supported by some experimental observa-
tions. For example, Hirao et al. 关9兴 have reported that the chips
produced with different chamfer angles are almost identical. This
is attributed to the presence of the dead metal zone that fills the
chamfer and makes the cutting process almost equivalent for dif-
ferent chamfer angles. It is also observed experimentally that the
shear angle shows little dependence on the chamfer angle. Zhang
et al. 关10兴 have reported that the shear angle for a chamfered tool
is decreased by a maximum of 2 deg–3 deg compared to that for
a sharp tool.
4.1.2 Cutting Forces, Stresses, and Temperature. Although
the chip is formed essentially in the same way with and without a
chamfer, the total cutting forces on the tool are quite different in
each case. The dependency of the tool forces on the chamfer angle
is evident from the distribution of stresses in the cutting and thrust
directions. Figures 5 and 6 compare the distributions of stresses
␴ xx and ␴ y y for sharp and chamfered tools of three different
chamfer angles, respectively. It is seen that the distribution of
stresses in the cutting direction ␴ xx is similar for all the four cases
shown. On the other hand, the stresses in the direction tangent to
the tool rake face ␴ y y show marked increase with increase of the
chamfer angle. It is noted in Fig. 6 that the area of the concentra-
tion of high ␴ y y values turns downward toward the center of the
workpiece as the chamfer angle increases. As noted by Zhang
et al. 关9兴, the work material is extruded under the dead zone to
form the machined surface. The stress distribution is consistent
with what is observed in metal extrusion processes, where the
Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering
change of die angle does not affect the stresses in the extrusion
direction, but significantly affects the stresses in the perpendicular
direction. The ␴ y y stresses under the chamfer support the built up
nose of the tool in this area. The larger stress values at larger
chamfer angles means that the material is strained to a larger
extent and the residual stresses on the machined surface will be
larger too. The proposed numerical formulation, which is consis-
tent with the experimental observations, may be useful in studying
the residual stresses on the machine surface, which is quite im-
portant for fatigue failure of aerospace parts.
Figure 7 compares the cutting and thrust forces obtained from
the experiments and FE simulations. Also shown in the figure are
the analytical force predictions of Ren and Altintas 关11兴, who used
a slip line field solution for the chamfered tools. It is seen that
both cutting and thrust forces are increased with the increase of
chamfer angle. However, whereas the force in the cutting direc-
tion is only slightly affected by the chamfer angle, the increase in
the thrust force is much more pronounced. This observation is
consistent with the experimental results shown in the figure, and is
also reported in other experimental studies 关9,10兴. The cutting
forces obtained from simulation are in average about 10 percent
larger than experimental values, while the thrust forces are only
slightly underestimated in the simulations. Such differences may
be partially attributed to the uncertainty in the material and fric-
tional models used in the simulation, as well as the difference
between the actual edge radius during the cutting test and the one
used in the simulations. The forces predicted from slip-line solu-
MAY 2002, Vol. 124 Õ 183
 Fig. 6 Distribution of ␴ yy for sharp and chamfered tools of various chamfer
angles

tion show the same trend as that of experimental and finite ele-
ment results, though they are considerably overestimated.
The forces predicted for the blunt tool are also shown in Fig. 7.
It is seen that while the cutting force increases only slightly, the
thrust force is further increased compared to that for the tool with
⫺35 deg chamfer angle. It may be concluded that the lower por-
tion of the nose radius of the worn tool acts as a tool with a larger
chamfer angle, resulting in larger thrust forces.
Simulation results show that the distribution of temperature in
the shear zone and at the tool-chip interface is not affected sig-
nificantly by the chamfer angle. Ren and Altintas 关11兴 obtained a
similar conclusion from analytical temperature solution following
the procedure laid out by Oxley 关28兴. A typical distribution of
temperature is shown in Fig. 8 for the case of ⫺35 deg chamfer
angle which shows the maximum temperature of around 1000°C
on the rake face of the tool. It is noted that due to high conduc-
tivity of the tool material, the tool reaches a very high temperature
after a relatively short length of cutting. Also, there exists a large
gradient of the temperature across the width of the chip.
Finally, Fig. 9 shows the distribution of stresses, effective plas-

Fig. 7 Cutting and thrust forces vs. chamfer angle. Numerical predictions are
compared with experimental and analytical results of Ren and Altintas †11‡.

184 Õ Vol. 124, MAY 2002 Transactions of the ASME

 Fig. 8 Temperature distribution in the chip and the tool for the case of À35
deg chamfer angle

Fig. 9 Distributions of „a… ␴ xx , „b… ␴ yy , „c… effective plastic strain rate, and „d…
temperature for the worn tool

Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering MAY 2002, Vol. 124 Õ 185
 Fig. 10 Distribution of effective plastic strain rate „left…, and temperature
„right… for CBN tools at cutting speeds of V w Ä240, 600, 1000 mÕmin, from top to
bottom, respectively
tic strain rate and temperature for the blunt tool. Compared to the
stress distributions on chamfered edges, the maximum stress in
the cutting direction for the blunt tool shows slight increase, while
the tangential stress follows the same increasing trend as for
chamfered tools. An interesting observation in the contour of
strain rate is that its maximum is considerably smaller than those
observed for chamfered tools 共see Fig. 4兲. This may be because in
this case there is no sharp edge and the material is strained over a
larger area by the blunt edge at the flank of the tool. The tempera-
ture distribution for the blunt edge shows that while its peak oc-
curs on the chip-tool interface close to the point of separation, the
flank of the tool is also at a very high temperature due to exces-
sive straining and friction of the material with tool flank at this
region.
4.2 Influence of Cutting Speed on Cutting With Cham-
fered Tools. The carbide inserts used in the experimental work
reported above are worn out quickly if used for machining at
speeds above 400 m/min. In order to investigate the influence of
cutting speed in high speed cutting with chamfered tools, CBN
inserts were used by Ren and Altintas 关11兴 with a constant cham-
fer angle of ⫺25 deg, a chamfer length of 0.1 mm and a main rake
angle of ⫺5 deg. Three different cutting speeds of 240, 600 and
186 Õ Vol. 124, MAY 2002
1000 m/min are tested. Similar cutting conditions are simulated in
this study using the ALE finite element program.
Figure 10 shows the distributions of effective plastic strain rate
and temperature obtained from cutting simulations at three differ-
ent cutting speeds. From the simulations, the shear angle is pre-
dicted at around 27 deg, and shows only slight dependency on the
cutting speed, whereas the experimental results show a shear
angle of 28 deg, for V w ⫽240 m/min, and 32 deg for the V w
⫽600 and 1000 m/min. The distribution of effective plastic strain
rate in the cutting zones is similar for different cutting speeds, but
its magnitude is significantly affected by the cutting speed. The
maximum strain rate reaches close to order 106 s⫺1 for the cutting
speed of 1000 m/min. An interesting observation in these simula-
tions is that while at lower cutting speeds, a region of low strain
rate exists on the chamfer, such a region is absent at higher
speeds. This observation casts doubt on presence of dead metal
zone under the chamfer at higher cutting speeds, but this needs to
be verified experimentally. The magnitude and distribution of tem-
perature is also affected by the cutting speed, as expected. The
maximum temperature increases form around 1000°C to 1500°C
when the cutting speed increases from 240 to 1000 m/min. The
diffusion limit for Cobalt binding in the carbide tool is about
1300°C while this limit for binding material (Al2 O3 ) used in the
Transactions of the ASME
 Fig. 11 Effect of cutting speed on the cutting and thrust forces. Numerical
predictions are compared with experimental and analytical results of Ren and
Altintas †11‡.
CBN tool is about 1600°C. Comparing these limits with the maxi-
mum temperatures achieved at higher speeds, the importance of
using a CBN tool in high speed machining becomes evident. A
similar trend is reported by Ren and Altintas 关11兴 for the chip-tool
interface temperature, where a range of temperatures of 1150°C to
1700°C is analytically predicted for the above range of speeds. On
the other hand, the distribution of the temperature field is also
affected by speed as the region of high temperature on the chip-
tool interface becomes narrower and the temperature gradient
across the chip width becomes larger at higher cutting speeds.
This phenomenon may be attributed to the fact that at higher
speeds, the thermal process moves closer to adiabatic conditions
as there is less time for spreading of thermal energy in the chip
through conduction. The areas of high temperatures are concen-
trated on the chip-tool interface and the flank of the tool.
Figure 11 shows the effect of cutting speed on the cutting and
thrust forces. The cutting force shows a decreasing trend in the
simulations, which may be attributed to softening of the material
at higher temperatures. The average difference between the ex-
perimental and simulated cutting forces is around 15 percent. Also
shown in the figure are the forces predicted by the analytical slip-
line model of Ren and Altintas 关11兴. The thrust forces obtained
from simulation are also decreased at higher speeds, and are in
good agreement with the experimental results. The analytically
predicted thrust forces show larger differences with the experi-
mental values.
5 Conclusions
In this paper, a thermo-mechanical ALE finite element formu-
lation is used to simulate chip formation process in orthogonal
cutting of P20 steel. The results of simulation of cutting process
with different chamfer angles show that chamfer angle does not
affect the chip removal process significantly, because a dead metal
zone is formed under the chamfer and acts as the main cutting
edge of the tool at low to medium cutting speed range. A zone of
stagnant material under the chamfer is evident in simulation re-
sults, with a size proportional to the size and angle of the chamfer.
However, cutting forces, particularly in thrust direction, increase
with the increase in the chamfer angle. It is observed that the
region of high stresses in the thrust direction turns inward as the
chamfer angle increases, which may result in higher residual
stresses on the finish surface and more rapid flank wear. These
predictions are in agreement with experimental observations in the
literature. Furthermore, the influence of the cutting speed on the
deformation process for chamfered tools is studied using CBN
tools, because such tools have higher resistance against diffusion
wear than carbide tools. Not surprisingly, the most significant ef-
fect of the cutting speed is in the large increase in the tool tem-
perature, which justifies the use of CBN tools for high speed
machining of hardened steels.
Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering
This study supports the experimental observations on the ef-
fects of cutting edge in the chip formation process, and demon-
strates the capability of ALE finite element method in realistic
modeling of the machining process. It is shown that the proposed
FE model has a potential to be used for optimizing the cutting
edge shape, chip load and cutting speed which leads to limit re-
sidual stresses on the finish surface and maximum temperature
gradients on the tool. Nevertheless, a limited range of material,
cutting conditions and edge geometries has been considered in
this paper. Further study of this subject may include varying
chamfer length, ratio of chamfer size to uncut chip thickness, a
broader range of cutting conditions, and a more thorough study of
residual stresses, supported by experimental verification.
Finally, the present implementation of ALE method is only suit-
able for continuous chip formation, and does not automatically
extend to segmented and shear-banded chips. For such cases, a
crack propagation scheme should be incorporated and a more
complex mesh motion scheme should be used to allow for cre-
ation of new surfaces in the chip.
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Transactions of the ASME