Heat Conduction in Coated Tools during Cutting Based on Finite Element Simulation

Abstract

Cutting tool temperature which mainly depended on the tool-chip interface temperature has crucial effect on the tool service performance and its life. It is essential to investigate the heat conduction in the cutting tool in order to define the temperature distribution on the cutting tool during machining. Advanced coating materials are adopted to deposit on the carbide substrate to enhance the tools’ cutting performance. Thus, the influence of coating layers on the heat transfer during the cutting process has been an important research topic. Advantage software was employed to simulate the cutting process in this paper. The influences of coating materials on the temperature distribution in the cutting tools were investigated. The study results show that KCU10 cutting tool with TiAlN/TiN coating layers shows good thermal properties than that of KT315 cutting tool with TiN/TiC/TiN coating layers. The cutting temperature along the tool-chip contact length shows increasing trend first with the distance from the tool tip point and then decreasing after the tool-chip separation point. Under the same coating thickness, TiAlN coating material presents better thermal properties than TiN coating material.