Study on the mechanisms and simulation of the tool wear process in machining of stainless steels with carbide tools

Stainless steel is a kind of difficult-to-cut materials because of its low heat conductance, poor machining quality, serious work hardening, built up edge and tool wear. In this paper, the mechanisms and varying law of tool wear vs. cutting parameters in turning stainless steels with carbide tools is first investigated by performing the systematical cutting experiments and examining with SEM instruments, and a mathematical model is derived which shows that the wear rate of the carbide tools is dependent on the cutting process variables at tool/chip and tool/work interface. In the prediction of these cutting process variables, FEM has advantages over experimental and analytical methods. Hence then the modelling techniques of chip formation process simulation by using the commercial FEM code ABAQUS are discussed. At last, a method to estimate the tool wear with the aid of FEM is proposed. With this method tool wear progress in turning operation is estimated. The predicted flank and crater wear are verified by experimental results.