CUTTING TOOLS FOR MACHINING

INTRODUCTION
Success in metal cutting depends upon the selection of the proper cutting tool (material and
geometry) for a given work material. A wide range of cutting tool materials is available with a
variety of properties, performance capabilities, and cost. These include high carbon steels and
low/medium alloy steels, high-speed steels, cast cobalt alloys, cemented carbides, cast carbides,
coated carbides, coated high speed steels, ceramics, cermets, whisker-reinforced ceramics, sintered
polycrystalline cubic boron nitride (CBN), sintered polycrystalline diamond, and single-crystal
natural diamond. Figure 22-1 shows the common tool materials in a matrix of tool materials ranked
by the cutting speeds used to machine a unit volume of steel materials, assuming equal tool lives. As
the speed (feed rate and DOC) increases, so does the metal removal rate. The time required to
remove a given unit volume of material therefore decreases. Notice the fivefold increase in speed
that the TiC/ AL2O3 / TiN-coated carbide has over the WC/Co tool (77 ~ 370 m/ min).

The cutting tool material, cutting parameters, and tool geometry

selected directly influence the productivity of the machining operation.
Figure 22-2 outlines the input variables that influence the tool material
selection decision. The elements which influence the decision are:

- Work material characteristics (chemical and metallurgical state,

hardness)
- Part characteristics (geometry, accuracy, finish, and surface-
integrity requirements)
- Machine tool characteristics, including the work-holders
(adequate rigidity with high horsepower, and wide speed and
feed ranges)
- Support systems (operator's ability, sensors, controls, method of
lubrication and chip removal)

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Tool material technology is advancing rapidly, enabling many difficult-
to-machine materials to be machined at higher removal rates and/or
cutting speeds with greater performance reliability. Higher speed
and/or removal rates usually improve productivity. Predictable tool
performance is essential when machine tools are computer controlled
and have minimal operator interaction. Long tool life is desirable when
machines are placed in cellular manufacturing systems.
The cutting tool is subjected to severe conditions. Tool temperatures
of 1000 °C, severe friction and high local stresses require that the tool
have these characteristics.
1. High hardness (Figure 22-3)
2. High hardness temperature, hot hardness (refer to Figure 22-3)
3. Resistance to abrasion, wear, chipping of the cutting edge
4. High toughness (impact strength) (refer to Figure 22-4)
5. Strength to resist bulk deformation
6. Good chemical stability (inertness or negligible affinity with
the work material)

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7. Adequate thermal properties
8. High elastic modulus (stiffness)
9. Consistent tool life
10. Correct geometry and surface finish

Figure 22-3 compares various tool materials on the basis of hardness, the most
critical characteristic, and hot hardness (hardness decreases slowly with
temperature). Figure 22-4 compares hot hardness with toughness or the ability
to take impacts during interrupted cutting.

Naturally, it would be most wonderful if these materials were also easy to fabricate,
readily available, and inexpensive, since cutting tools are routinely replaced but this is
not usually the case. Obviously, many of the requirements conflict and therefore tool
selection will always require trade-offs.

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CUITING TOOL MATERIALS
In nearly all machining operations, cutting speed and feed are limited by
the capability of the tool material. Speeds and feeds must be kept low
enough to provide for an acceptable tool life. If not, the time lost changing
tools may outweigh the productivity gains from increased cutting speed.
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Coated and uncoated carbides are currently the most extensively
used tool materials. Coated tools cost only about 15 to 20% more
than uncoated tools, so a modest improvement in performance can
justify the added cost. About 15 to 20% of all tool steels are
coated, mostly by the physical vapour deposition (PVD) processes.
Diamond and CBN are used for applications in which, despite higher
cost, their use is justified. Cast cobalt alloys are being phased
out because of the high raw material cost and the increasing
availability of alternate tool materials. New ceramic materials
called cermets (ceramic material in a metal binder) are being
introduced that will have significant impact on future
manufacturing productivity.

TOOL STEELS

Carbon steels and low/medium alloy steels, called tool steels, were
once the most common cutting-tool materials.
Plain-carbon steels of 0.90 to 1.30% carbon when hardened and tem-
pered have good hardness and strength and adequate toughness and
can be given a keen cutting edge.
However, tool steels lose hardness at temperatures above 205°C
because of tempering and have largely been replaced by other
materials for metal cutting.
The most important properties for tool steels are hardness, hot hardness and tough-
ness. Low/medium alloy steels have alloying elements such as Mo and Cr, which
improve harden ability, and Wand Mo, which improve wear resistance. These tool
materials also lose their hardness rapidly when heated to about their tempering
temperature of 150 to 345 °C and they have limited abrasion resistance.
Consequently, low/medium alloy steels are used in relatively
inexpensive cutting tools (e.g., drills, taps, dies, reamers, broaches,
and chasers) for certain low-speed cutting applications when the heat
generated is not high enough to reduce their hardness significantly.
High-speed steels, cemented carbides, and coated tools are also used
extensively to make these kinds of cutting tools. Although more
expensive, they have longer tool life and improved performance.

HIGH-SPEED STEELS

First introduced in 1900 by F. W. Taylor and White, high-

alloy steel was superior to tool steel in that it retains
its cutting ability at temperatures up to 594°C,
exhibiting good "red hardness." Compared with tool steel,

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it can operate at about double or triple cutting speeds
to about 30 m/min with equal life, resulting in its name
high-speed steel, often abbreviated HSS.

Today's high-speed steels contain significant amounts of W, Mo, Co, V, and Cr

besides Fe and C. W, Mo, Cr, and Co in the ferrite as a solid solution provide
strengthening of the matrix beyond the tempering temperature, thus increasing
the hot hardness. Vanadium (V), along with W, Mo, and Cr, improves hardness
(RC 65-70) and wear resistance.

High-speed steel is still widely used for drills and many types of
general-purpose milling cutters and in single-point tools used in
general machining. For high-production machining it has been
replaced almost completely by carbides, coated carbides, and coated
HSS.

HSS main strengths are

. Great toughness-superior transverse rupture strength
. Easily fabricated
. Best for sever applications where complex tool geometry is needed
(gear cutters, taps, drills, reamers, dies)

CAST COBALT ALLOYS

Cast cobalt alloys, popularly known as stellite tools, are cobalt-rich, chromium-
tungsten-carbon cast alloys having properties and applications in the intermediate
range between high-speed steel and cemented carbides. Although comparable in
room-temperature hardness to high-speed steel tools, cast cobalt alloy tools retain
their hardness to a much higher temperature. Consequently, they can be used at
higher cutting speeds (25% higher) than HSS tools. Cast cobalt alloys are hard as
cast, and cannot be softened or heat treated.
Cast cobalt alloys contain a primary phase of Co-rich solid solution strengthened by
Cr and W and dispersion hardened by hard, refractory carbides of W and Cr.
Tools of cast cobalt alloys are generally cast to shape and finished to size by
grinding. They are available only in simple shapes, such as single-point tools and saw
CARBIDE OR SINTERED CARBIDES
Carbide cutting tool inserts are traditionally divided into two primary groups
1. Straight W grades, which are used for machining cast irons, austenitic stainless
steel, and non ferrous and non metallic materials.
2. Grades containing major amounts of titanium, tantalum, and/or columbium
carbides, which are used for machining ferritic work pieces. There are also the

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 titanium carbide grades, which are used for finishing and semifinishing ferrous
alloys.
Carbides, which are nonferrous alloys, are also called sintered (or
cemented) carbides because they are manufactured by powder
metallurgy techniques.

These materials became popular during World War II, as they afforded
a four- or five fold increase in cutting speeds.

The early versions had tungsten carbide as the major constituent, with
a cobalt binder in amounts of 3 to 13%. Most carbide tools in use
today are either straight WC or multi-carbides depending upon the
work material to be machined. Cobalt is the binder. These tool
materials are much harder, and chemically more stable,
have better hot hardness, high stiffness, and lower fric-
tion, and operate at higher cutting speeds than HSS. They
are more brittle and more expensive and use strategic metals (W, Ta,
Co) more extensively.

Cemented carbide tool materials based on TiC have been

developed primarily for auto industry applications using
predominantly Ni and Mo as a binder. These are used for
higher speed (> 305 m/min) finish machining of steels,
and some malleable cast irons.

Cemented carbide tools are available in insert form in

many different shapes: squares, triangles, diamonds, and
rounds. They can be either brazed or mechanically
clamped onto the tool shank. Mechanical clamping is more
popular because when one edge or corner becomes dull,
the insert is rotated or turned over to expose a new
cutting edge.

CERAMICS
Ceramics are made of pure aluminium oxide, Al2O3 or Al2O3 used as
a metallic binder. Using P/M, very fine particles are formed into
cutting tips under a pressure of 267 to 386 MPa and sintered at
about l000°C.
Ceramics usually are in the form of disposable
tips. They can be operated at two to three times
the cutting speeds of tungsten carbide. They

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almost completely resist cratering, run with no
coolant, and have about the same tool life at their
higher speeds as tungsten carbide does at lower
speeds.
Ceramics are usually as hard as carbides but are
more brittle (lower bend strength) and therefore
require more rigid tool holders and machine tools
in order to take advantage of their capabilities.
Their hardness and chemical inertness make ceramics a good
material for high-speed finishing and/or high-removal-rate
machining applications of superalloys, hard-chill cast iron, and
high strength steels. Because ceramics have poor thermal and
mechanical shock resistance, interrupted cuts and interrupted
application of coolants can lead to premature tool failure. Ceramics
are not suitable for aluminium, titanium, and other materials that
react chemically with alumina-based ceramics.

CERMETS
Cermets are a new class of tool materials best suited for finishing.
Cermets are ceramic TiC, nickel, cobalt, and tantalum nitrides. TiN
and other carbides are used for binders. Cermets have superior
wear resistance, longer tool life, and can operate at higher cutting
speeds with superior wear resistance. Cermets have higher hot
hardness and oxidation resistance than cemented carbides. The
better finish imparted by a cermet is due to its low level of chemical
reaction with iron [less cratering and built-up-edge (BUE)].
Compared to carbide, the cermet has less toughness, lower thermal
conductivity, and greater thermal expansion, so thermal cracking
can be a problem during interrupted cuts.

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DIAMONDS

Diamond is the hardest material known. Industrial

diamonds are now available in the form of
polycrystalline compacts, which are finding
industrial application in the machining of
aluminium, bronze, and plastics, greatly reducing
the cutting forces as compared to carbides. Diamond
machining is done at high speeds with fine feeds for finishing and
produces excellent finishes.
The salient features of diamond tools include high hardness, good
thermal conductivity, the ability to form a sharp edge of cleavage
(single-crystal, natural diamond), very low friction, non-adherence to
most materials, the ability to maintain a sharp edge for a long period
of time, especially in machining soft materials such as copper and
aluminium, and good wear resistance.
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To be weighed against these advantages are some
shortcomings, which include: diamond wears rapidly when
machining or grinding mild steel. It wears less rapidly
with high-carbon alloy steels than with low-carbon
steel, and has occasionally machined grey cast iron
(which has high carbon content) with long life. Diamond
is very brittle and is difficult and costly to shape
into cutting tools.

TOOL GEOMETRY
Figure 22-12 shows the cutting tool geometry for a single point tool (HSS) used in
turning. The back rake angle affects the ability of the tool to shear the work
material and form chip. It can be positive or negative. Positive rake angles reduce
the cutting forces, resulting in smaller deflections of the workpiece, tool holder,
and machine. In machining hard work materials, the back rake angle must be
small, even negative for carbide and diamond tools. Generally speaking, the
higher the hardness of the workpiece the smaller the back rake angle. For high-
speed steels, back rake angle is normally chosen in the positive range.

True rake inclination of a cutting tool has a major effect in

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determining the amount of chip compression and the shear angle. A
small rake angle causes high compression, tool forces, and friction,
resulting in a thick, highly deformed, hot chip. Increased rake angle
reduces the compression, the forces, and the friction, yielding a
thinner, less-deformed and cooler chip. Unfortunately, it is difficult to
take much advantage of these desirable effects of larger positive rake
angles, since they are offset by the reduced strength of the cutting
tool, due to the reduced tool section, and by its greatly reduced
capacity to conduct heat away from the cutting edge.

In general, the power consumption is reduced by approximately 1 % for each 1 ° in

α. γ is the end relief angle. The wedge angle θ determines the strength of the tool
and its capacity to conduct heat and depends on the values of α and γ. The relief
angles mainly affect the tool life and the surface quality of the workpiece. For
high-speed steel, relief angles in the range of 5 to 10° are normal, with smaller
values being for the harder work materials.

TOOL FAILURE AND TOOL LIFE

In metal cutting, the failure of the cutting tool can be classified into two broad
categories, according to the failure mechanisms that caused the tool to die (or fail):
1. Slow-death mechanisms: gradual tool wear on the flank (s) of the tool below the
cutting edge (called flank wear) or wear on the rake face of the tool (called crater wear)
or both.
2. Sudden-death mechanisms: rapid, usually unpredictable and often catastrophic fail-
ures resulting from abrupt, premature death of a tool

Figure 22-13 shows a sketch of a "worn" tool, showing crater wear and flank wear,
along with wear of the tool nose radius and an outer diameter groove (the DCL
groove). As the tool wears, its geometry changes. This geometry change will influence
the cutting forces, the power being consumed, the surface finish obtained, the
dimensional accuracy, and even the dynamic stability of the process. Worn tools are
duller creating greater cutting forces, often resulting in chatter in processes that
otherwise are usually relatively free of vibration.

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The sudden-death mechanisms are more straightforward but less predictable.
These mechanisms are categorized as plastic deformation, brittle fracture,
fatigue fracture, or edge chipping. Here again it is difficult to predict which
mechanism will dominate and result in a tool failure in a particular
situation. What can be said is that tools, like people, die (or fail) from a
great variety of causes under widely varying conditions. Therefore, tool life
should be treated as a random variable, or probabilistically, and not as a
deterministic quantity.

FLANK WEAR
During machining, the tool is performing in a hostile environment wherein high
contact stresses and high temperatures are common place, and therefore tool wear
is always an unavoidable consequence. At lower speeds and temperatures, the tool
most commonly wears on the flank. In Figure 22-14 four characteristic tool wear
curves (average values) are shown for four different cutting speeds, V1 through V4.
V4 is the fastest cutting speed and therefore generates the fastest wear rates. Such
curves often have three general regions, as shown in the figure. The central region is
a steady-state region (or the region of secondary wear). This is the normal operating
region for the tool. Such curves are typical for both flank wear and crater wear.
When the amount of wear reaches the value Wf, the permissible tool wear on the
flank, the tool is said to be "worn out." Wf is typically set at 0.64 to 0.76 mm for
flank wear. For crater wear, the depth of the crater is used to determine tool failure.

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Using the empirical tool wear data shown in Figure 22-14, which used
the values of T (time in minutes) associated with V (cutting speed) for
a given amount of tool wear, Wf (see the dashed-line construction)
Figure 22-16 was developed. When V and T are plotted on log-log
scales, a linear relationship appears described by the equation
VT n = constant = K

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ECONOMICS OF MACHINING

MACHINABILITY

Machinability is a much maligned term which has many

different meanings but generally refers to the ease with
which a metal can be machined to an acceptable surface
finish. The principal definitions of the term are entirely
different, the first based on material properties, the
second based on tool life, and the third based on cutting
speed.
1. Machinability is defined by the ease or difficulty with
which the metal can be machined. In this light, specific
energy, specific horsepower, and shear stress are used as
measures, and in general, the larger the shear stress or

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specific power values, the more difficult the material is to
machine, requiring greater forces and lower speeds. In
this definition, the material is the key.

2. Machinability is defined by the relative cutting speed for

a given tool life while cut ting some material, compared to
a standard material cut with the same tool material.
As shown in Figure 22-21, tool-life curves are used to
develop machinability ratings.

In steels, the material chosen for the standard

material was B1112 steel, which has tool life of 60 min
at a cutting speed of 30 m/min.
Material X has a 70% rating, which implies that steel X
has a cutting speed of 70% of B1112 for equal tool
life. Note that this definition assumes that the tool
fails when machining X by whatever mechanism dominated
the tool failure when machining the B1112.

3. Cutting speed is measured by the maximum speed at which

a tool can provide satisfactory performance for a
specified time under specified conditions.
4. Other definitions of machinability are based on the ease
of removal of the chips (chip disposal), the quality of the
surface finish of the part it self, the dimensional stability
of the process, or the cost to remove a given volume of
metal.

CUTTING FLUIDS

From the day that Frederick W. Taylor demonstrated that a heavy

stream of water flowing directly on the cutting process allowed the
cutting speeds to be doubled or tripled, cutting fluids have flourished
in use and variety are employed in virtually every machining process.
The cutting fluid acts primarily as a coolant and secondly as a
lubricant, reducing the friction effects at the tool/chip interface and
the work/ flank regions. The cutting fluids also carry away the chips
and provide friction (and force) reductions in regions where the

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bodies of the tools rub against the workpiece.

Thus in processes such as drilling, sawing, tapping, and reaming,

portions of the tool apart from the cutting edges come in contact with
the work, and these (sliding friction) contacts greatly increase the
power needed to perform the process, unless properly lubricated. The
reduction in temperature greatly aids in retaining the hardness of the
tool, thereby extending the tool life or permitting increased cutting
speed with equal tool life.

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