Int. J. Machining and Machinability of Materials, Vol. 11, No.

4, 2012 327

Machinability evaluation of pre-hardened plastic

mould steels

Hamed Hoseiny* and Berne Högman

Uddeholms AB, Research and Development,
68385 Hagfors, Sweden
Fax: +46-563-17460
E-mail: hamed.hoseiny@uddeholm.se
E-mail: smhh@alumni.chalmers.se
E-mail: berne.hogman@uddeholm.se
*Corresponding author

Uta Klement and Anders Kinnander

Department of Materials and Manufacturing Technology,
Chalmers University of Technology,
41296 Gothenburg, Sweden
Fax: +46-31-772-1313
E-mail: uta.klement@chalmers.se
E-mail: anders.kinnander@chalmers.se

Abstract: There are multiple demands placed upon plastic mould steels,
depending on the application they will have. Among these requirements,
machinability has generally a great economic importance in mould steels and in
pre-hardened mould steels in particular. The machining cost can exceed more
than half of the cost of a mould. Nevertheless, to avoid subsequent heat
treatment, distortion and dimensional inaccuracy, there has been the tendency
to use even higher hardness in the pre-hardened mould steels, a hardness range
of 38–40 HRC instead of 30–32 HRC.
In this work, machinability of some of the most popular grades of
pre-hardened plastic mould steel at 38–40 HRC is compared in two milling and
two drilling operations. The materials have shown very different properties in
different machining operations. This, beside the high requirements upon the
plastic mould steels, such as polishability, hardness, impact toughness etc.
makes it very complicated to improve these types of steels to be superior in all
mould applications.

Keywords: machinability; machining; milling; drilling; pre-hardened mould

steels; plastic mould steels; machinability evaluation; rough milling; semi-fine
milling; polishability; toughness; hardness.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Hoseiny, H., Högman, B.,
Klement, U. and Kinnander, A. (2012) ‘Machinability evaluation of
pre-hardened plastic mould steels’, Int. J. Machining and Machinability of
Materials, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp.327–341.

Copyright © 2012 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

328 H. Hoseiny et al.

Biographical notes: Hamed Hoseiny is an industrial PhD candidate

at Uddeholms AB in collaboration with Department of Materials and
Manufacturing Technology at Chalmers University of Technology in
Gothenburg, Sweden. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Metallurgy and
Materials Engineering in 2002 and MSc in Advanced Materials. He also holds
a Licentiate of Engineering in Manufacturing Technology. His research area is
‘investigating the effect of metallurgical parameters on machinability of
pre-hardened mould steels’.

Berne Högman graduated from the Swedish School of Mining and Metallurgy
in 1994. Since then, he has been working in R&D machining department in
Uddeholms AB. He is an expert in defining the best cutting conditions and
tools for different types of materials specifically in tool steels. He also has a
long experience in machinability tests.

Uta Klement has been appointed as a Professor in Materials Science with

emphasis on Electron Microscopy at Chalmers University of Technology in
1999. She studied Physics in Göttingen, where she also received her PhD in
1991. At that time, she became acquainted with electron microscopy which is
still her main investigatory technique. In 1992, she took up a post-doc position
at the University of Toronto, Canada. On her return to Germany, she worked
at Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden
(IFW-Dresden) and at the MPI für Metallforschung in Stuttgart, investigating
nanocrystalline magnetic materials and semiconductor devices. In 1998, she
became the head of the Electron Microscopy Laboratory at the Corporate
Research Center of Degussa AG in Hanau, where she developed analytical
microscopy for the investigation of advanced materials. At Chalmers, her
research is focussed on the determination of the structure-property relationship
in engineering materials.

Anders Kinnander has been appointed as a Professor in Manufacturing Systems

in 1999. He studied Mechanical Engineering at Linköping University of
Technology and took his MScEng in 1974, followed by graduate studies at the
Department of Design and Production Engineering at Linköping University of
Technology. This led to a PhD in 1981 with the thesis ‘Machining monitoring
in turning’. After gaining his PhD, he became an Acting Professor at Linköping
University of Technology. In 1984, he took up a position at ABB-STAL
working on the development of production systems. In 1993, he was appointed
as an Professor in Production Engineering at Luleå University of Technology,
where his research was directed at simulation aids in the development of
production systems, including the modelling of support processes.

1 Introduction

There are multiple demands placed upon mould steels, depending on the application they
will have. These demands could be divided into two major demands:
1 mouldmaker’s demands which are mostly, machinability, polishability, heat-treating
stability, weldability and nitriding ability
2 the moulder’s demands that are wear resistance, toughness, compressive strength, hot
hardness, corrosion resistance and thermal conductivity.
 Machinability evaluation of pre-hardened plastic mould steels 329

Among these requirements, machinability has great economic importance. Due to high
volume of material removal to make cavities in plastic mould steels, machinability is one
of the most crucial processing properties. The cost of machining in a plastic mould
usually exceeds 60% of total cost of a mould. Choosing steel with better machinability
reduces the cost of machining through reducing the cutting tool consumption, operation
time, power consumption, etc.
Machinability has a wide definition and can depend on many factors such as the
machining condition, cutting tool and work material. It can be expressed by material
removal rate, chip breaking easiness, tool life and machined surface (Mesquita and
Barbosa, 2005). The first three factors contribute in machining time and therefore one can
say that improving the machinability can be achieved by reduction of machining time
and/or enhancing the machined surface. The priority and importance of these factors may
vary depending on the type of mould and its application. For example, when making a
mould in which much milling is required to remove high volume of material, chip
breaking is not a problem but high material removal rate and tool life will have higher
importance. However, in moulds in which much drilling also is required, chip breaking
becomes an important factor.
Among the different machining operations, milling and drilling are the most
important for plastic mould making. Therefore, rough milling, end milling, drilling with
twist drills and gun drilling are applied to test the machinability of the steels in this
screening. Other properties which are tested in the materials in this work are
polishability, toughness (V-Charpy impact test) and hardness.
The mould surface is fundamental to the finishing of the plastic part produced by that
mould. Moulds require different polishing levels according to their applications. For
instance in the production of CDs and glasses, an extremely well polished surface is
required for the mould.
Fracture toughness describes the resistance of materials against the extension of
pre-existing cracks by unstable crack propagation under the particular stress condition at
the crack tip (Kalthoff, 2001). High fracture toughness reduces the risk of cracking in the
mould. Increase in toughness is therefore one of the desired mechanical properties in
mould steels.
Fillers such as glass fibres which are added to the liquid plastic to give higher
strength to the plastic product wear away the mould and lower the dimensional accuracy
of the plastic mouldings. Also, it reduces the lifetime of the mould by destroying its
surface. The scratches at the surface will be an origin for fracture or corrosion of
the mould as well. Production of thinner plastic products demands higher strength in
mould steel in order to tolerate the higher clamping force and pressure in the moulding
process.
Nowadays, there is a tendency to utilise moulds with hardness in the range of
38–40 HRC. In this condition the steel has higher mechanical strength, wear resistance
and better polishability. To shorten the lead times by eliminating the post heat treatment
and avoiding related dimensional change, there is a trend to use mould steels in
pre-hardened condition. Therefore, pre-hardened plastic mould steels with hardness of
around 40 HRC are very popular in mould industry. Hence, improving machinability in
this kind of steels will give an advantage in the market.
 330

Table 1
screening
H. Hoseiny et al.

Steel Remarks C% Si% Mn% Cr% Ni% Mo% S% Al% Cu% Other elements Hardness (HRC)
M1 Corrosion resistant 0.26 0.26 0.6 14.3 0.86 0.95 < 0.01 _ _ _ 40
M2 _ 0.37 0.3 1.4 2.0 1.0 0.2 0.01 _ _ _ 42
M3 _ 0.09 0.25 2.4 3.0 1.0 0.3 < 0.01 _ 0.2 _ 36
M4 Continuous cast 0.3 0.60 0.8 1.0 0.7 0.4 < 0.01 _ _ _ 41
M5 Ca-treated 0.37 0.4 1.5 1.8 0.8 0.2 < 0.01 _ _ Ca% 0.003 43
PH1 Corrosion Resistant 0.03 0.3 0.3 12.0 9.2 1.5 0.02 1.5 _ _ 40
PH2 _ 0.1 0.27 1.5 0.25 3.2 0.3 < 0.01 1.0 1.0 _ 41
PH3 _ 0.05 1.2 0.45 4.0 3.2 1 < 0.01 0.8 0.4 _ 40
PH4 _ 0.2 0.3 1.5 0.4 3.0 0.25 0.08 0.9 0.8 _ 39
PH5 0.1 0.3 1.5 0.2 3.0 0.2 < 0.01 1.0 1.0 _ 35
Chemical composition (in wt.%) and hardness of the plastic mould steels selected for
 Machinability evaluation of pre-hardened plastic mould steels 331

2 Experimental procedure

2.1 Materials
In this screening, 10 plastic mould steels are investigated. The criterion for choosing
these materials has been their popularity in the market and that they can be delivered in
pre-hardened condition ~40 HRC. Table 1 shows the composition of the materials
together with properties or other specifications provided by the producers. The materials
are divided into the categories ‘precipitation hardening’ (PH) and ‘martensitic’ (M)
according to their main hardening mechanism. One alloy of each category is corrosion
resistant; also a Ca-treated grade is added. These steels are received as blocks with
dimensions near to 500 × 250 × 80 mm.

2.2 Machining tests

2.2.1 Rough milling with indexable insert milling cutter
The rough milling tests were done on a three-axis CNC, Sajo VM450 ISO50, with a
maximum power of 25 kW and spindle speed of 2,300 rpm. The inserts used in
this experiment were carbide round inserts of type Sandvik Coromant RCKT 1204MO
4030-PM mounted on an end-mill (Sandvik Coromant R200-028A32-12M, Ø 40 mm,
tool overhang 145 mm). The tool rake angle is γ = 0° and the cutting edge has a chamfer
of 0.09 mm × 15°.
In this experiment, three round inserts which were mounted to the end-mill were used
[Figure 1(a)]. The tool path is illustrated schematically in Figure 1(b) and the cutting
parameters are given in Table 2. Milling was performed until the average flank wear on
the three inserts reached 0.5 mm. The flank wear versus milling time was recorded.

Figure 1 (a) End-mill, inserts and setup (b) schematic illustration of milling route, for the test of
rough milling

(a) (b)

2.2.2 End milling with ball-nose cemented carbide tools

The experiment was performed on a three axis CNC, Modig 7000 Machining Center,
with maximum power of 10 kW and spindle speed of 15,000 rpm. The cutting path for
332 H. Hoseiny et al.

end milling test was parallel straight lines along the rolling direction of the workpieces.
The cutting tools were ball-nose cemented carbide milling cutter, Sandvik Coromant
R216.42-10030-AC19P 1620, Ø 10.0. The applied milling parameters are given in
Table 2; the flank wear on the two cutting edges was measured. As illustrated in Figure 2,
the criterion for end of tool life was 0.2 mm average of maximum flank wear (VBmax) on
the two cutting edges.

Table 2 Cutting parameters for rough milling and end milling tests

Cutting parameters Rough mill End mill

Axial depth of cut, ap 2.0 1
Radial depth of cut, ae 12.0 2.5
Feed rate, fz 0.25 0.1
Cutting speed, vc (m/min) 200 250
Table feed, vf (mm/min) 1,291 2,652
Wear criteria, VBmax (mm) 0.5 0.2
Average chip thickness (mm) 0.058 0.02
Coolant dry dry

Figure 2 Illustration of the maximum flank wear at the cutting edge of a ball-nose milling tool

Note: Insert: top view of an unused ball-nose milling tool.

2.2.3 Drilling with HSS twist drill (V1000)

The same machine tool as for end milling tests was used for the drilling experiments. The
procedure included drilling of blind boreholes until drill failure (Figure 3). The cutting
conditions are mentioned in Table 3. The cutting speed was changed until conditions
were found that gave 1,000 mm drilled length for each material. This speed is called
V1000 value. At each speed, the test is repeated three times and the average of the drilled
length is measured. The drill type used in this experiment was Wedevåg Double X Ø 5
mm uncoated high speed steel (HSS)-drill.
 Machinability evaluation of pre-hardened plastic mould steels 333

Figure 3 Test of drilling with HSS twist drills (V1000)

2.2.4 Gun drilling

This experiment is performed with a WILLY DEGEN Deep-Hole-Drilling machine. It is
a four axis CNC type UTB 600 H with maximum power of 7.5 kW and up to 5,000 rpm
spindle speed. The maximum coolant pressure is 80 bar. The test is performed under
the conditions given in Table 3. The cutting parameters are chosen according to
recommendations by Sandvik Coromant (2007). The criterion in this test was to reach
8,000 mm drilled length. The wear at the tip of the drills was determined in case more
than 8,000 mm were drilled. The tool type used in this test was BRT, uncoated K15
carbide, Ø 8 mm, 950 mm length.
Table 3 Cutting parameters for drilling tests

Cutting parameters Drilling with HSS Gun drill

Cutting speed, vc (m/min) Varying 60
Rotational speed (rpm) Varying 2,400
Feed rate (mm/rev) 0.15 0.015
Drill depth (mm) 12.5 430
Coolant Emulsion, 5% (water-soluble) Oil, 60 bar pressure

2.2.5 Polishability test

The polishability of the materials is compared based on an internal method developed at
Uddeholms. Two samples are first plane ground at the same time on a high speed rotating
grinding wheel flushed with water. The roughness of the wheel was 130 mesh. The
samples were then polished in three stages with diamond suspension 6 μm, 3 μm and
1 μm. The polishing of all samples at each stage is done on the same machine and
polishing cloth with the same speed and load for all of the materials. The surface of the
polished samples was investigated with a stereo microscope at ten times magnification
and the samples were ranked with respect to polishability by the grades 1 to 5, where 1
means the best and 5 means the worst polished surface.
334 H. Hoseiny et al.

1 a few small pores

2 small pores
3 many small pores
4 many small pores + a few big ones
5 many small pores + many big ones.
In some cases, a + or – sign is added to these values to differentiate further than with the
respective grade.

2.2.6 Toughness (impact Charpy-V test)

Charpy-V test is done in order to measure the impact toughness of the steel grades. These
tests are performed in a Roel Amsler RK150 machine with nominal energy of 150 J and
release angle of 150°. The tests are done according to the standard EN 10045. Three
samples for each direction are tested, in L-T, S-T and T-L direction where L stands for
longitudinal, T stands for transversal and S stands for short transversal in relation to the
rolling direction. Hence, nine tests are done for each steel grade and the average is
reported for each direction. Samples are taken from the inside of blocks and not from the
surface.

3 Results and discussion

3.1 Machinability
The results of the different tests are summarised in Table 4. Hence, the properties of the
steel grades and their machinability can easily be compared. The value of impact
toughness in S-T direction is not measured for steel PH1, because the low thickness of
the available block did not allow preparing a sample in this direction.
As can be seen from the results, the materials act differently in different milling
processes. Some of the materials are performing well in rough milling but worse in end
milling and vice versa; this can be clearly seen by comparing the milling results of M2
and M5 or PH3, PH5 and PH4. The same behaviour is seen when comparing drilling and
milling test results, i.e., some materials with higher millability have low drillability and
vice versa. This is especially obvious when comparing the drilling and milling test results
of M3 and PH2, or M4 and PH1. Cutting operation, tool type and tool material, cutting
speed and other parameters, all influence the machinability and this makes it difficult to
choose a material with respect to machinability in order to make a mould when high
polishability and advantageous mechanical properties are also required.
PH5 and PH4 are the two alloys which have shown high millability and drillability in
all four operations. Since the hardness is much lower in PH5 than in other steel grades
(except M3), it cannot be compared with other materials in the screening. Indeed, the
hardness of 35 HRC is lower than the hardness range anticipated in this work as
pre-hardened condition. Hardness is one of the most effective parameters on the
machinability and as a rule of thumb, the harder a material is, the more difficult it is to
machine it with a cutting tool. Kahng (1978) has studied the relationship between V1000
value and Brinell hardness (HB), and the results revealed a decrease of V1000 with
increase of hardness. Accordingly, the lower hardness of M3 steel can be a reason for its
rather higher machinability in all of the machining operations.
 Table 4

Gun drilling Impact toughness

Hardness Rough milling End milling Drilling, V1000
Steel Drilled length Flank wear (J) Polishability
(HRC) (min)* (min)* (m/min)
(mm) (mm) ST – TL – LT

M1 40 5 18 18 2,250 Failed 9.0 – 5.0 – 7.6 3+, 4–

M2 42 28 14 12 1,800 Failed 5.5 – 10 – 14 1, 1
M3 36 83 80 22 8,550 0.40 34 – 34 – 41 1, 1
M4 41 49 100 21 1,575 Failed 8.5 – 19 – 21 1, 1
M5 43 14 71 11 1,125 Failed 12 – 10 – 10 1+, 1+
PH1 40 9 6 21 380 Failed - – 18 – 39 1+, 1+
PH2 41 44 88 31 8,550 0.32 6 – 6 – 12.5 1, 1
PH3 40 58 320 26 8,550 0.26 7 – 11 – 16 1, 1
PH4 39 120 > 340 31 8,750 0.20 5.0 – 3.0 – 4.6 4, 4
PH5 35 143 194 34 8,550 0.21 12 – 18.5 – 23 1, 3
Note: *M illing time until wear criterion is achieved
Machinability evaluation of pre-hardened plastic mould steels

The summary of the results of all tests performed on steel samples

335
336 H. Hoseiny et al.

High machinability in PH4 is attributed to its high sulphur content and consequently the
high amount of Mn sulphides as compared to the other steel grades. The influence of
sulphur content on the machinability is studied for many years (Hong-Rong, 2005;
Joseph and Tipnis, 1975; Jiang et al., 1996; Poulachon et al., 2002; Tasaka et al., 1975). It
is well-known that sulphur is one of the most effective elements in increasing the
machinability of steels. MnS have a low hardness and melting point and improves
machinability because of their stress concentration factor and because they are acting as
lubricant and diffusion barrier (Hong-Rong, 2005; Trent and Wright, 2000). But
they have also adverse effect on other properties like transverse impact toughness,
fracture toughness, fatigue properties and polishability (Akasawa et al., 2003). The poor
polishability and impact toughness in PH4 (Table 4) is the result of high sulphide content
and is not acceptable for today’s high requirements on plastic mould steels. Figure 4
illustrates the microstructure of PH4 and the distribution of coarse sulphides.
Non-metallic inclusions such as sulphides and oxides are the main factors influencing the
polishability of steels. Depending on their size and distribution, they can destroy the
polishability at different levels. The low polishability in sample M1 is mainly caused by
the high amount of coarse oxides.

Figure 4 The backscattered SEM micrograph of steel PH4, showing the MnS inclusions

The results of drilling tests show that generally precipitation hardening (PH) steels have
better drillability than martensitic (M) grades. In fact, chip breaking has a more important
role in drilling which is a continuous cutting process than in interrupted cutting process,
e.g., milling. In addition, in drilling the space for chip movement is much smaller than in,
e.g., turning and that enhances the importance of chip breaking agents in the work
material in drilling. Presence of a fine distribution of second phase particles, e.g.,
precipitates and inclusions, improves chip breaking, although different particle types have
different performance in this respect. However, hard inclusions such as pure oxides
would have negative effect on the tool life (Pytel and Rudnik, 1991).
In order to be able to rank the materials according to gun drilling test, the flank wear
on the tools which were able to drill more than 8,000 mm was measured. It would be best
if the flank wear would be less than 0.4 mm, since it is then possible to reuse the tool by
regrinding the cutting edge. Results show a better performance of PH steels in gun
drilling as for drilling with twist drills. The same explanation about drillability of the
 Machinability evaluation of pre-hardened plastic mould steels 337

materials can be applied on gun drilling results since both have characteristics of drilling
process. As seen from the milling results, changing the type of milling and consequently
the cutting speed and feed rate changed the ranking of materials in two milling processes.
In drilling, in contrast, by changing the drilling type, still PH materials have higher
drillability. This can show the pronounced effect of chip breaking influence of
precipitates in drilling.
The two corrosion resistant grades (PH1 and M1) are having poor machinability
especially in milling. Corrosion resistant alloys are generally regarded as difficult to
machine. This is mostly because of high alloying content, low thermal conductivity,
stickiness and formation of built-up edge on the tool. The formation of built-up edge also
results in a poor surface finish. High amounts of alloying element lower the thermal
conductivity which results in higher temperature at the cutting zone and leads in
reduction of tool hardness and enhancement of wear (Leffler et al., 1998).
In the case of PH1, because of the very low carbon content of this alloy, probably the
martensite of the matrix is very soft which results in gummy behaviour during cutting.
The carbon content in material M1 is higher but formation of high amounts of Cr23C6
carbides has trapped most of the carbon in carbides and has resulted in a low carbon
martensite. The hard Cr23C6 carbides are also considered to increase the tool wear.
Figure 5 illustrates the built-up edge and the irregular wear at the inserts used for rough
milling of PH1 and M1 grades.

Figure 5 The inserts used for rough milling of materials (a) M1 and (b) PH1

(a)

(b)

Note: Both inserts show built-up edge at the worn part of the insert
These two corrosion resistant grades have shown better machinability in drilling as
compared to milling. This can be attributed to the importance of chip-breaking in drilling
operations. In PH1, the NiAl precipitates act as chip-breaker. In M1, high amounts of
globular oxide inclusions exist which can improve the chip breaking by acting as stress
raisers. The chromium carbides may also have a similar contribution. However, to obtain
better understanding of which mechanism is more important in drilling, more
338 H. Hoseiny et al.

investigations are needed. Figure 6 shows the Cr-carbides and NiAl precipitates in M1
and PH1, respectively.

Figure 6 The optical micrographs of materials (a) M1 and (b) PH1, showing the Cr23C6 (arrows)
and NiAl (arrows) precipitates in them respectively

(a)

(b)

3.2 Toughness
It is well known that impact toughness of steels significantly depends on the
microstructure, i.e., amount and distribution of metallographic constituents such as
precipitates and grains, as well as the type, morphology, size and distribution of
non-metallic inclusions (Lagneborg, 1981). Not only a high toughness value is needed,
also a uniform toughness is of advantage. The sulphides and precipitates that are
elongated reduce the transverse toughness and cause an uneven toughness in transversal
and longitudinal directions.
Calcium treatment allows sulphur reduction and creates globular oxide inclusions.
Hence, it increases the isotropy level of the toughness (Hippenstiel et al., 2004). M5 is
benefiting from the Ca treatment and as it can be seen in Table 4, it has a uniform
toughness at the three directions although its toughness is not very high. M3 has the best
toughness which is both high and the same in all directions. Comparison of PH and M
materials indicates that generally precipitation hardened grades have a lower toughness as
 Machinability evaluation of pre-hardened plastic mould steels 339

a result of containing large amount of inter-metallic particles that are non-coherent with
the metallic matrix.
When comparing the ranking of materials, it can be seen that there is no direct
relationship between toughness and machinability of materials in any of the performed
cutting operations. M3, which has the highest toughness among the steel grades, is ranked
average in all machinability experiments, and PH5 with a high toughness is one of the
best in machinability. On the other hand, PH4 which has shown very good machinability
in all operations has the lowest toughness. Hence, when developing materials with better
machinability, toughness does not have to be considered as an influencing factor.
However, since there are other differences between the materials besides the toughness
which requires more investigations. Nevertheless, it should be kept in mind that a high
enough toughness is required for a steel to be applicable as plastic mould steel.

4 Conclusions

The machinability of ten most popular plastic mould steels is tested regarding four of the
most applicable machining operations utilised for making plastic moulds. These are
rough milling with indexable carbide inserts, end milling with carbide tool, drilling with
HSS twist drill and gun drilling. The conclusions of this work are summarised as follows:
1 Materials act differently in different machining operations. Changes in cutting
condition may alter the response of the material, i.e., the response of materials in
rough milling and end milling was controversial in many cases. This, beside the high
requirements upon the plastic mould steels, such as polishability and hardness,
impact toughness, etc., makes it very complicated to improve these types of steels to
be superior in all mould applications.
2 Beside the required mechanical properties, materials selection is influenced by the
kind of machining operations which is most applied during fabrication of a specific
mould.
3 Generally, precipitation hardening steels have a better drillability than martensitic
grades. The chip breaking is very important in drilling and in precipitation hardening
grades, fine distribution of precipitates increase the chip breaking.
4 The behaviour of materials in gun drilling test was the same as in drilling with HSS
twist drills. This was in contradiction to the milling operations in which some of the
materials showed different behaviour in two different milling operations.
5 There was no direct relationship between the toughness and machinability of the
steels as measured by the criteria used in this work, i.e., with focus on only tool life.
However, having high enough toughness is an important mechanical property for
plastic mould steels.
6 In comparison to the martensitic grades, the precipitation hardened grades showed
rather better machinability but lower impact toughness.
340 H. Hoseiny et al.

7 The corrosion resistant steels showed very low machinability and caused built-up
edge during milling. This is because of high alloying content and low thermal
conductivity, stickiness and formation of built-up edge on the tool. However, both
alloys had higher machinability in drilling because of the chip breaking effect.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of Böhler-Uddeholm AG and

CAPE research school. The authors would also like to thank Silvia Zinner (Böhler
Edelstahl GmbH & Co KG) and Dr. Celso Antonio Barbosa (Villares Metals) for
providing materials. Rickard Sundström (Sandvik Tooling) is greatly acknowledged for
providing cutting tools and cutting data.

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