DEVELOPMENT OF CUTTING

TOOLS FOR MACHINING SOFT

METALS
K.-H. Park and P. Kwon

Mechanical Engineering
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI
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INTRODUCTION
• Machinablility of Soft Materials such as Aluminum &
Copper Alloys, etc. – Ductile and High Conductivity
• Due to Ductility, BUE, long Chip and burr are Formed
• High Thermal Expansion – Deteriorate Dimensional
Tolerance
• Aluminum Alloys Exhibit High Friction and Strong
Adhesive Interaction with Tool Materials - BUE
Formation (High Cutting Force, Poor Surface Finish and
Short Tool Life)
• Severe Abrasive Wear Cause Tool Failure in Silicon
Containing Aluminum Alloy Machining

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 OBJECTIVES
• After selecting a reference soft material
– Select Candidate Coated/Solid Tools
– Determine Optimal Cutting Edge Geometry
(Sharpness)
– Study of the Tool Wear Mechanism in Various
Machining Processes (Drilling or Milling etc.) – Wear
Map
• Machining Test Data of Available Coatings
• A Better Cutting Tools & Coatings for Soft
Material Machining
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APPROACH
• UNDERSTANDING OF CUTTING MECHANICS
AND TOOL WEAR
– Tool Wear Evolution Test (Work Material types
(Microstructure), Cutting Conditions, Tool Edge
Geometry (Sharp tool), Lubrication System (Dry or
MQL))
– ALE – FEM Simulation (Using Johnson Cook
Constitutive Model for a particular material)
– Tool Wear Analysis (Adhesion, Abrasion, Diffusion,
Chemical Reaction, etc.)
• Wear Mechanism Map

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Pros and Cons with Aluminum
• Cutting Temperature is relatively low.
– Dissolution wear does not operate.
• Abrasion and Adhesion wear are the
important wear mechanisms.
– Adhesion wear is not understood very well.
• In Abrasion
– Identification of abrasive phases
– Effect of Coherency of Inclusions.
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Inclusions in a chosen Al Alloy

• Casting Methods to control the nonmetallic
inclusions
– Settling under gravity field
– Electromagnetic field
– DC Electric and AC Electric field
• Identification of Inclusions
– Peterson[1994], Eckert [1991] and Sigworth et
al. [1989]

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 Aluminum Alloys
Alloys Al Cu Fe Mg Mn Si
1050 99.5 0.4 0.3 weight %
1100 99.0 0.6 0.3
2024 93.5 4.4 0.5 1.5 0.6 0.5
3004 96.5 0.3 0.7 1.0 1.2 0.3
4043 93.5 0.3 0.8 5.2
5050 96.9 0.2 0.7 1.4 0.1 0.4
6063 98.5 0.3 0.7 0.4
Others not included are Vanadium, Chromium, Titanium, Zinc.
Intermetallics: Al6Mn, Al3Cr, Al3Ti and Al2Cu (during aging).
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WEAR MECHANISM
• ADHESION
• Size of loose particles due to adhesion (Rabinowicz, 1965)

Asperity Size

IAB1965,
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E. Rabinowicz, Friction and Wear of Materials, Wiley, p. (10-
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 Asperity Size
• Size of loose particles due to adhesion
– dloose = 60000 Wab / pa (plastic deformation)
– dloose is the diameter of a loose particle created by
adhesion
– Wab is the energy of adhesion = γa + γb − γab
where γab is the interfacial energy between a and b
– pa is the penetration hardness of material a
– dloose = 6 E Wab / (ν2 σy2) (elastic deformation)
– E is Young’s modulus of material a
– ν is Poisson’s ratio of material a
– σy is the yield stress of material a
• Particles of smaller size do not come loose
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Calculation of W/p
• Rabinowicz’s formula for energy of adhesion Wab
– Wab = γa + γb – γab ≈ C2 * (γa + γb), where
• C2 is a compatibility coefficient based on solubility
• γ is the surface energy

Formula for energy of adhesion W ab, table for C2 and compatibility figure taken from E. Rabinowicz, ASLE
Transactions, July 1971, 14(3):198-203 (Discussion pp.
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 WEAR MECHANISM
• ABRASION – Silicon Containing Alloys (at low cutting speed) (2-Body
Abrasion Theory)
• Built-Up Edge (BUE) - Prevent maintaining Sharp Cutting Edge
• DIFFUSION – Aluminum Diffuse into Tool Material (WC-Co) at BUE
Formed at High Cutting Speed
Due to High Temperature (Affinity)
Al-Co Diagram

Transformation of cobalts’ εstructure

into αstructure occurs at Temp
300℃ ~ 422℃ -> Solubility of
aluminum in cobalt –> cobalt
aluminide (brittle and degradation)
Calatoru et al. 2008 (In Press) 11
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Phase Transformation

WEAR MECHANISM ANALYSIS

• Secondary Electron Microscopy (BSE, EDS)
• Stylus Profile Measurement
• Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy
Tool Wear Evolution • Atomic Force Microscopy
Wavelet Transformation Stylus Profiler Crater
0min - Topography - Profiles

12min

18min

22min 12
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 NIST - Machining Test-bed ?
Tool
Workpiece
Custom
• Orthogonal Cutting Imaging
– Force measurement System

– Temperature measurement
– Tool wear ? Chip
Tool Post
• Cutting tools Dynamometer
– Rake angle, flank relief angle
etc.
– Modified geometry
• Elastic recovery of work
materials
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Examples of Thermal Images

Schematic 100 μm

Tube
Body

Chip
Tool

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 COATING MATERIALS
Required Characteristics:
Low Affinity, Low Friction Coefficient and High Hardness

• AVAILABLE COATINGS
- TiN and TiAlN
- Diamond CVD – High Hardness (Castro et al. 2008)
- DLC – Low Friction Coefficient (Low Affinity with Al) but Relatively
Low Abrasive Wear Resistance
- PCD – High Abrasive Wear Resistance (Grain size and Roughness)
- TiAlCrYN PVD - (Luo et al. 2005)
- TiAlN/VN PVD - nanoscale multilayer (Havsepian et al. 2006)

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MACHINING TESTS
Cutting Conditions Tool
Tool Material

Rake angle (º)

Clearance angel (º)
Cutting edge Radius (º)
Feed Rate (mm/rev)
Cutting Speed (m/min)
Depth of Cut (DOC) (mm)

Lubricant System: Dry or MQL

Coating Materials Work Materials

Work Material

Microstructures
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(Basavakumar et al. 2007)
 ALE-FE Simulation
Johnson Cook Constitutive Model
⎧ ⎛ ε& ⎞⎫⎧ ⎛ T − Tr ⎞⎫
σ = {A + Bε n }⎨1 + C ln⎜⎜ ⎟⎟⎬⎨1 − ⎜⎜ ⎟⎟⎬
⎩ ⎝ ε&0 ⎠⎭⎩ ⎝ Tm − Tr ⎠⎭
A, B, C, n and m : Materialconstants
σ : Flowstress,ε : Equivalentstrain
ε& : Strainrate (ε& 0 : Referencestrain rate (1.0s-1 ))
Tm : Meltingtemperature, Tr : RoomTemperaure(25o C)

• No Chip Separation Criterion

• No Arbitrary Contact Length
• Coating Layer on top of
Substrate Material
Temperature & Contact Pressure
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Wear Mechanism Map

Aluminium Alloys -Uncoated HSS Drilling Magnesium Alloys -Uncoated HSS Drilling
(Zhang et al. 2001) (Wang et al. 2008)

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 Proposed Work 2008-9
• Determine an ideal soft material with a
reliable constitutive model
• Adhesion test with prospective cutting tool
materials on MTS
– Oxidation or other surface layer?
• Determine prospective cutting tool
materials
• Simulation on ABAQUS to determine
Cutting tool geometry
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BUDGET
• Labor: $30,000
• Supply & Service: $10,000
• Travel: $ 500

• Total: $40,000

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