Experimental Study of Cutting Performance and Tool Wear in Dry Side Milling of Aluminum Alloy with DLC-coated HSS-Co Cutter

摘要

This paper presents the results of experiments in cutting performance and tool wear of a milling cutter in dry side milling of aluminum alloy A2017. The milling cutter consists of Co-bonded High-Speed-Steel matrix with Diamond-Like-Carbon coating (abbrev. DLC-coated HSS-Co cutter). The machining experiments were carried out with a cutting speed of 63 to 189 [m-min~(-1)] and feed of 0.08 [mm/tooth/rev], and the criterion of tool life was the generation of gouges and/or scratches on a machined surface. The experimental results support that the idea that, out of the four types of combination according to the presence or absence of coating and the up/down cutting manner, the DLC-coated cutter performs well in up-cutting. They also showed that the tool life of a DLC-coated cutter in up-cutting with a cutting speed of 157 [m-min~(-1)] corresponds to the cutting distance of 80 [m] with average width of flank wear 102 [ìm] and that in down-cutting was 60 [m] with 85 [ìm]. In the range of cutting distance up to 100 [m], the resultant cutting force with the DLC-coated cutter was smaller than that with a non-coated cutter. In case of the DLC-coated cutter in up-cutting with a cutting speed of 189 [m-min~(-1)], a chatter vibration occurred during the initial cutting distance. In case of the radial depth of cut of 1.5 [mm], it lasted up to the cutting distance of 10 [m] and more.