Tool Wear and Tool Life

Tool wear Mechanism

• Major wear mechanisms

– Abrasive wear
– Adhesion wear
– Diffusion
– Oxidation
– Fatigue
 1. Abrasive wear
• Softer material sliding over the face of hard
material may contain appreciable
concentration of hard particles
• Hard particles act as small cutting edge like
grinding wheel
• Hard particles result worn out of tool material
Abrasive wear cont…
 2. Adhesive Wear
• When softer metal slide over hard metal ,
parts of soft metal adhere high spots on the
metal due to:
– Friction
– High temperature
– Pressure
• The spots result irregular flow of chip over the
face and build up of more particles on the tool
 Adhesive Wear cont.
• Finally the built up edges will worn from the
surface result uneven structure on the tool
surface
 3. Diffusion
• When a metal is in sliding contact with
another metal the temperature at the
interface is high
• These high temperature allows the atoms of
hard material to diffuse into softer material
matrix
 Diffusion cont.
• hence the strength and abrasiveness of the
softer material Increase
• Atoms of the softer metal may also diffuse
into harder medium, thus weakening the
surface of harder material medium
• Diffusion phenomenon is strongly dependent
on temperature
 4. Oxidation
• Oxidation is the result of reaction between
tool face and oxygen
Ex. When machining steel work piece with HSS
or cemented carbide tool , groove formation
is greatly accelerated if the cutting zone is
subjected to a jet oxygen.
 5. Fatigue Wear
• Will occur when two surfaces slides in contact
with other under high pressure
• Roughness of one surface interlock with those
of other.
• Due to friction, compressive force will be
produced in one side and tensile on other side,
these phenomenon cause surface crack
 Fatigue Wear cont.
• The cracks ultimately combines with one
another and lead surface crumble
 Types of Wear
• Flank wear(wear land)
• Crater wear
• Chipping
 Flank Wear
• It produces wear land on the sides and end of
a flank
• Tool-work piece interface
• Predominant at low speed
 Flank wear
• Primary region breakage of sharp cutting edges
• Secondary zone
– The predominant zone caused by abrasion
• Tertiary zone
– Very sensitive to temperature ,caused by diffusion wear
 Crater wear
• It occurs on the rake face of the tool in the form of
pit called crater
• It is highly dependent on temperature
• Predominant at high speed
• Tool-chip interface
 Crater Wear
• Diffusion , the lose of hardened atoms at the
tool chip inter face is the major cause of
creator wear
 Chipping (premature wear )
• It refers the breaking away of small chips from
the cutting edge of tool or an insert on
account of impact or excessive plastic
deformation
• Large chipping can be caused by interrupted
cutting and sudden shock.
 Wear and chipping characteristics of
different tool materials
HSS
– At low cutting speed (temperature less than
700)
• Adhesion and abrasion
– At higher cutting speed (T>700c)
• It will loose it’s strength
• Rate of diffusion will be high
• Crater wear will be dominant
Tungsten Carbide-Cobalt (WC-Co) Tool
material
• Crater wear will be dominant as the
temperature exceeds 850 oC
• At smaller speed and feed rate adhesion is the
predominant and less abrasion.
• Its lower toughness leads it to greater
chipping and fracture
 Alumina(cemented oxide) tools

• Are capable of withstanding high temperature

• The rate of diffusion is so low even at a higher
temperature
• Insufficient toughness leads to premature
failure due to chipping
• Small negative tool edge is employed for a
longer tool life
 Boron Nitride
• It has extremely high hardness and toughness
at elevated temperature.
• It also exhibits excellent abrasion resistance
and a very good toughness
• Used in machining hardened steel
 Failure criteria(Tool life)
• To continue beyond its useful life is not
economical.
• Because it increase bluntness of cutting edge
causes increase in cutting forces, tool
temperature increase, dimensional accuracy
and surface finish suffer, ultimately it leading
to reject the product.
 Failure criteria(Tool life)
• The tool life can be classified as:
– Direct Criteria
– Indirect Criteria
• Direct Criteria: these depend upon direct
measurement of tool wear or direct visual
examination of the cutting edge.
– Limiting width for wear land at the flank face
– Limiting value of maximum depth of crater
– Limiting extent of chipping and crack formation
 Limiting width for wear land at the flank face

• According to ISO recommendation

V B = 0 . 3 mm
V B max = 0 . 6 mm
 Limiting value of maximum depth of crater
• According to ISO recommendation the following
value of crater depth as the tool failure criterion.
KT = 0.06 + 0.3f
• KT/KM is related to the catastrophic failure of the tool
and its the maximum permissible value may lie 0.2 to
0.4

KM
 Indirect Criteria
1. Limit value of surface roughness
2. Limit value of change in machined dimension
3. Limit value of increase in cutting forces
4. Limit value of volume of metal removed
5. Preliminary failure
6. Complete failure
 Tool Life Equations
• Tool life ‘T’ is the cutting time at the end of which a
given tool became on a selected tool failure
criterion.
Taylor’s tool life equation
VTn= C
• Where V is the cutting speed, T is the tool life, n is Taylor
exponent. n and C are constants depends on work material,
feed, depth of cut and cutting speed.
No Tool Material Value of n
1 HSS 0.15 – 0.20
2 Cemented Carbide 0.3 – 0.49
3 Ceramic 0.5 – 0.7
Comparative values of Taylor Tool
Life constant
Tool Material
Work HSS Carbide Ceramic
Material

Carbon Steel 40 – 100 200 – 460 2500

Cast Iron 30 – 60 100 – 150 9000
Titanium 10 – 20 100 – 150 -
Ni-base Metal 5–8 10 – 40 -
Niobium 40 – 60 150 – 200 -
Tungsten 120 – 160 400 – 600 -
Stainless Steel 20 – 35 120 – 200 -
 Tool Life Equation cont...
Modified Taylor’s tool life equation
V Tn dn1 fn2 = C
• Where,
– V is the cutting speed
– f is the feed
– d is depth of cut
– T is the tool life
– n, n1 and n2 are Taylor exponent
n, n1 and n2 and C are constants depends on work
material, feed, depth of cut and cutting speed.
 Tool life cont.
Example
• A steel bar of 40mm diameter are to be
turned over a length of 200mm with a depth
of cut 1.2mm and feed of 0.2mm/rev at
200rpm. If the tool life equation is given by
V T0 .2 d0.13 f0.31= 40
Determine the number of components turned
before regrinding the tool.
Parameters that affects tool life
1. Tool material properties
2. Coating of tool
3. Work material
4. Cutting condition
5. Tool geometry
6. Cutting fluid
7. Vibration behavior of the machine tool
8. Interruption in the cut
9. Built up edge
 1. Tool material properties

• Hot hardness
• Toughness
• Wear resistance
• Lack of chemical affinity with the work piece
• High thermal conductivity
 2. Coating of tool
41

Coating highly enhances tool life , it can be employed

as a single layer or multiple layer
Coating tool cont…
 3. Work material
• Properties of materials that increases tool life
– Low strength or hardness
– Absence of abrasive components like surface
scale, sand slag and inclusions
– Presence of desirable additives like lead , sulfur
– Occurrence of favorable structure,
ex Spherodized pearlite is favorable structure
for high carbon steel
 4. Cutting conditions
• High cutting speed
Increases temperature which softens the tool
material and finally facilitates abrasive, adhesive
and diffusions wears
• Larger feed
Increases the cutting force, the force will result
chipping and temperature increase
• Depth of cut
As the depth of cut increases the area of chip-tool
contact increases, and the tool temperature rise
slowly
 Cutting temperature as a function of
cutting parameters
• Cutting temperature as a function of cutting
speed ‘V’, feed ‘f’ and depth of cut ‘d’.
 5. Tool geometry
• With the increase of rake angles - cutting force,
temperature and tool wear decrease which improves
the tool life
• Large rake angle makes the cutting edge sharper and
reduce mechanical strength
• It is good to use the optimum rake angle
 Tool Geometry cont…
A h
B
VB
C δ

W  ½ VBbh = ½ VB2b tanδ

• Volume of wear required to reach a particular width of flank
wear increased with the increment of relief angle, which
increases tool life
• Large relief angle weakens the strength of cutting edge and
will causes chipping or fracture
• Tool life is maximum at the optimum relief angle
 6. Cutting fluids
• It serves as a coolant
• It acts as a lubricant
• The cutting temperatures are decreased