1.

Introduction

Hard materials in the form of cutting tools and inserts are extensively used in
several machining industries including mining and tunneling. These materials are
characterized by their superior hardness, wear resistance and excellent fracture
toughness, as well as oXidation resis- tance and chemical stability. After their
development in the 1920s, cemented carbides have dominated the cutting tool
(machining) in- dustry. However, in comparison to conventional carbide cutting tools,
advanced ceramic based tool materials containing Al 2O3, TiN, cBN, Si3N4, SiC and
ZrO2 as the main component, have been of great interest mainly due to their high
thermal and chemical stability, wear resistance, and an increased metal removal rate
(through higher cutting speeds and/or higher feed rates) with the extended tool’s life.
Moreover, the superiority of the advanced ceramic-based tools over the carbide-based
tools is amplified at higher temperatures.
For instance, WC-Co - based tools will soften or o Xidize at lower temperature than
fully ceramic ones (approXimately 800 ◦C vs. 2000 ◦C respectively) [1] and as a result
of this, fully ceramic tools provide an
improved stability during high-temperature machining. Secondly, they exhibit lower
tendency to adhere to the machined metals, and the for- mation of a built-up edge is
significantly diminished, resulting in a su- perior surface finish and dimensional
accuracy during the process. In addition, ceramic tools can also be used in high-speed
machining of various types of metals and refractory nickel-based alloys [2]. The
development of novel materials containing such advanced ceramic-based tools for cost
and performance optimization in high-speed machining conditions is constantly
reported [3].
Aluminum oXide (Al2O3) is a promising example among the list of ceramic cutting
tool materials and, as an essential refractory material, is often used in grinding media,
cutting tools, high temperature bearings, and a wide variety of mechanical parts. Yet,
due to its brittleness and inferior fracture toughness owing to extremely limited
dislocation movement by their ionic and/or covalent bonds, the application of these
materials is quite limited [2]. Recently, it has been shown that the addition of multiple
phases can improve fracture behavior and the me- chanical properties of alumina-
based composites through hard particle inclusion of zirconia (ZrO2), titanium carbide
(TiC), titanium nitride (TiN), silicon carbide (SiC), titanium diboride (TiB 2) etc. [3–
9]. These composites are mainly produced using pressure-assisted sintering
techniques (e.g. hot pressing) resulting in a significant enhancement in mechanical properties
in comparison to monolithic Al2O3. Furthermore, a number of promising wear studies (and
cutting performance) of Al2O3-based cutting tools have favorably comparable results with
various work piece materials including, cast iron [8], 0.45% C mild carbon steel (40–42 HRC)
[10], alloy tool steel (52–60 HRC) [9], and Inconel 718 (388 HBS) [11]. The utilization of the
superhard materials as inclusions (hardness value above 40 GPa, such as, diamond, cubic
boron nitride and carbon nitride) to impart superior wear properties in industrial tools have
currently gained popularity [12–14]. The demand for superhard tool materials is motivated by
the scientific interest to explore the potentials of producing a material whose hardness could
approach that of diamond. Firstly, cutting tools containing superhard phases enable dry
machining without the usage of cutting fluids and hence, the omission of the harmful effects of
lubricant on the environment and human health. Secondly, a more efficient finishing
operations can be attained with the elimination of the need for any additional grinding
operations, which provides a significant economic gain through reduction in manufacturing
costs [14,15]. As yet, diamond remains the hardest known material (HV ~ 70–100 GPa).
However, it has a serious constraint in working temperatures. For instance, oxidation of the
diamond starts at 600 ◦C, whereas its conversion to softer phase, graphite starts at 900 ◦C [16].
Moreover, it suffers from the degradation by carbide formation during the contact with ferrous
metals and alloys (such as, steel or nickel). Thus, unfortunately diamond containing tools can
only be used at low to moderate working temperatures and restricted to non-ferrous metals and
alloys [3]. A cubic boron nitride (cBN) is an allotropic crystalline form of boron nitride with a
structure analogous to that of diamond and is known to be the second hardest material (HV ~
48 GPa) [17]. Moreover, its ability to efficiently machine ferrous-based materials (unlike
diamond) have rightfully gained its popularity in the machining industry. Other significant
properties of cBN include, high chemical resistance and high Young’s modulus (~900 GPa)
[17]. Contrary to the diamond, cBN exhibits excellent thermal stability and starts to oxidize
only at 1200 ◦C, whereas, conversion to a hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) (a process analogous
to the graphitization of a diamond) starts at ≈1400 ◦C [17]. In addition, the boron oxide layer
formed (on the surface) during oxidation of BN polymorphs is reported to protect against
further oxidation [18]. The cBN, similarly to diamond, is a metastable polymorph and its
sintering is challenging due to the primarily covalent bonding, low selfdiffusion coefficients of
boron and nitrogen and a possible transformation to the low-hardness hBN, when sintering
takes place with an insufficient pressure and temperature [19]. Hence, a fully dense cBN is
usually processed using extremely high pressure and high temperature (HPHT) conditions
(7.5–8.0 GPa and >2000 ◦C) [13]. Polycrystalline cBN (PcBN) composites are produced in
low (~40–50 vol%) or high (>80 vol%) cBN content using HPHT processing. With the
increase of the hard phase content in the composite, an increase in hardness, mechanical
strength and fracture toughness is observed. However, due to the long production time and
high cost of the HPHT, a large number of researches was focused on the possibility of
producing cBN-containing composites using a cheaper and faster alternative technique of
spark plasma sintering (SPS). The SPS route is known to utilize lower pressure (usually not
higher than 0.5 GPa) and short sintering time (could be as less as 10 min including heating and
holding at required temperature). Moreover, due to the short sintering time of the SPS process,
the phase transformation of cBN to hBN can be inhibited or reduced. Several studies on SPSed
cBN-containing composites (cBN content is higher than 20%) report a decrease in hardness,
flextural strength and increase or decrease of fracture toughness depending on bonding phase
[14,20–24]. This is mainly due to the insufficient bonding between cBN particles due to their
hBN transformation (softer phase) at the interface [17,22,24]. Nevertheless, the cBN to hBN
transformation has not been observed at sintering temperatures below 1400 ◦C during SPS
processing [14,17, 23]. Klimczyk et al. [14,17,23] described a successful synthesis of the
dense cBN-containing composites using Al2O3 powder as a bonding phase. In order to enable
sintering with parameters suitable for alumina (temperature and pressure is lower than that for
cBN), it was proposed to limit the concentration of cBN (max 30 vol %) to avoid contacts
between cBN grains. An improvement in fracture toughness values of composites in
comparison to pure Al2O3 was observed. The cBN to hBN transformation in the presence of
TiN was reported at 1300 ◦C for Al2O3 + 20% cBN +10% TiN [14,17,23]. Current research is
a continuation of the previous works to tribologically investigate SPSed composites containing
cBN up to 20 vol% [14,17,23]. The studies were done to assess performance of new materials
in various conditions and to compare results with those obtained in steel cutting conditions
without cooling liquid [25].