Development of Diamond-Coated Drills for High Speed Machining SiC Particles Reinforced Aluminum-Matrix Composite

摘要

Compared to sintered polycrystalline diamond (PCD), the deposited thin film diamond has a great advantage on the fabrication of cutting tools with complex geometries such as drills. Because of high performance in high speed machining non-ferrous difficult-to-cut materials in the field of automobiles industry, aeronautics and astronautics industry, diamond-coated drills find large potentialities in commercial applications. However, the poor adhesion of the diamond film on the substrate and high surface roughness of the drill flute adversely affect the tool life and machining quality and they become the main technical barriers for the successful development and commercialization of diamond-coated drills. In this paper, diamond thin films were deposited on the commercial WC-Co based drills by the electron aided hot filament chemical vapor deposition (EACVD). A new multiple coating technology based on changing gas pressure in different process stages was developed. The former large triangular faceted diamond grains may have great contribution to the adhesive strength between the film and the substrate, and the later overlapping ball like blocks consisted of nanometer sized diamond crystals may contribute much to the very low roughness of diamond film. Adhesive strength and quality of diamond film were evaluated by scanning electron microscope (SEM), atomic force microscope (AFM), Raman spectrum and drilling experiments. The ring-block tribological experiments were also conducted and the results revealed that the friction coefficient increased with the surface roughness of the diamond film. From a practical viewpoint, the cutting performances of diamond-coated drills were studied by drilling the SiC particles reinforced aluminum-matrix composite. The good adhesive strength and low surface roughness of flute were proved to be beneficial to the good chip evacuation and the decrease of thrust and consequently led to a prolonged tool life and an improved machining quality. The wear mechanism of diamond-coated drills is the abrasive mechanical attrition.