Influence of Tool Flank Wear on Surface Integrity in Orthogonal Milling of Powder Metallurgy Superalloy

Abstract

Tool flank wear has the significant effects on machined surface integrity. The influences of tool flank wear on the cutting forces, surface roughness, microhardness and white layer thickness are investigated in this paper through orthogonal milling experiments. FGH95 powder metallurgy (PM) superalloys are machined with coated cemented carbide tools in the milling experiments. The experiment results show that with the increasing of tool flank wear, cutting force, surface roughness and white layer thickness increase. However, the machined surfaces micro-hardness aggravates with the increase of tool flank wear. It is found that, the machined surface roughness, micro-hardness and white layer increase dramatically especially when the tool flank wear exceeds 0.3mm. A conclusion is then be drawn that, the maximum acceptable tool flank wear land is 0.3mm from the view point of surface integrity when FGH95 PM superalloy is machined with coated cemented carbide tools.