Experimental tool life and wear analysis of different thickness pecvd TiAlSiN nanocoated cutting tool inserts

Abstract

Tool life and wear of the coated cutting tools insert play an important role on turning EN24 steel. On turning EN24 steel it is very essential to find the optimum range of coating thickness on the cutting tool inserts with increased tool life and reduced wear. This article investigates the performance evaluation of TiAlSiN-PECVD multilayer nano-coated cutting tool inserts with different coating thicknesses of 1.5, 3, 5, 6.5, 8, 10 and 12 μm.The performance of the cutting tool inserts were evaluated with a cutting speed of 47.12, 54.97 and 62.83 m/min on turning EN24 work material. In the experimental study, the cutting tool inserts with coating thicknesses of 5, 6.5 and 8 µm has given increased tool life and reduced wear where as the coating thicknesses of 1.5, 3, 10 and 12 µm has given reduced tool life and increased wear. The minimum tool wear of 0.124 mm occurred in the coating thickness of 6.5 µm with a cutting speed of 55 m/min. It is observed that the coating thickness ranges from 5 μm to 8 μm has produced an enhanced tool life with corresponding Vickers hardness values ranging from 2400 to 2440 HV. In the comparative study, it has been found that the experimental tool life has enhanced by 19.18%, 31.60% and 20.18% for the corresponding coating thicknesses 5, 6.5 and 8 µm respectively when compared with their theoretical tool life.