Unit - 1.PrintOUT
Unit - 1.PrintOUT
Unit - 1.PrintOUT
Chip Formation
The chip formed in the metal cutting processes undergoes plastic
deformation, i.e. it becomes shorter and its cross section increases
(Chip contraction). Due to contraction the length of the chip
obtained will be much shorter than the length of travel of the tool
along the surface of the work. Depending upon the material being
machined and the cutting conditions used, four types of chips are
produced during metal cutting, viz., Continuous chip, Continuous
chip with built up edge, Discontinuous chip / Segmental chips, Non-
homogeneous chip.
Types of chips
Continuous chip is produced when the material ahead of the tool
continuously deforms without fracture and flows off the tool face in
the form of a ribbon. This type of chip is common when most ductile
materials, such as wrought iron, mild steel, copper and aluminum are
machined. Basically this operation is one of shearing the work
material to form the chip and the sliding of the chip along the face of
the cutting tool. The formation of chip takes place in the zone
extending from the tool cutting edge to the junction between the
surfaces of the chip and work piece; this zone is known as the
primary shear zone. This type of chip is associated with low friction
between the chip and the tool face. Some times chip breakers
become necessary for convenient chip handling.
Under certain conditions, the friction between the chip and the tool is
so great that the chip material welds itself to the tool face / nose. The
presence of this welded material further increases the friction and
this friction leads to the building up of layer upon layer of chip
material. The resulting pile of material is referred to as a built-up
edge. The built-up edge continues to grow and then breaks down
when it becomes unstable, the broken pieces being carried out by the
underside of the chip and the new work piece surface. Continuous
chips with built-up edge normally occur while cutting ductile
materials with high speed steel tools at low cutting speeds. Welding
of chips to the tool forms the built up edge which adversely
influences on tool life, power consumption and surface finish.
Therefore chip welding should be prevented by following means
a) Reduce friction by increasing rake angle of the cutting tool and
by using a lubricant between the rake face and the chip.
b)Reduce temperature by reducing friction and by reducing
cutting speed
c) Reduce pressure between the chip and the tool by increasing the
rake angle, reducing the feed rate and using oblique instead of
orthogonal cutting
d)Preventing metal to metal contact by use of a high pressure
lubricant between chip and tool interface.
Discontinuous chips are separate, plastically deformed segments
which either loosely adhere to each other or remain completely
unconnected. The work material undergoes severe strain during the
formation of chip, and it is brittle, fracture will occur when the chip
is partly formed. Under these conditions the chip is segmented and
the result is the formation of discontinuous chip. Discontinuous
chips are also produced when machining brittle materials such as
cast iron or cast brass. Such chips may also be produced when
machining ductile materials at very low speeds and high feeds. For
brittle materials discontinuous chip is associated with fair surface
finish, lower power consumption and reasonable tool life. For ductile
materials, segmented chips are not desirable as they indicate
excessive tool wear and poor surface finish.
Non-homogeneous chip can be seen in materials in which the yield
strength decreases with temperature and which have poor thermal
conductivity. These chips are formed due to non-uniform-strain in
the material during chip formation. There are notches on the free
side of the chip, while the side adjoining the tool face is smooth. The
shear deformation which occurs during chip formation causes the
temperature on the shear plane to rise, which in turn may decrease
the strength of the material and cause further strain if the material is
a poor conductor. Thus a large strain is developed at the point of
initial strain. As the cutting process is continued, a new shear plane
will develop at some distance from the first shear plane and the
deformation shifts to this point thereby giving the characteristic
notch-like appearance of the non-homogeneous chip.
Forces acting on a single point cutting tool
Determination of the cutting forces are required for:
Estimation of cutting power consumption, which also enables
selection of the power source(s) during design of the machine
tools
Structural design of the machine – fixture – tool system
Evaluation of role of the various machining parameters ( process
– VC, so, t, tool – material and geometry, environment – cutting
fluid) on cutting forces
Study of behaviour and machinability characterisation of the
work materials
Condition monitoring of the cutting tools and machine tools.
• Mixed carbides
Titanium carbide (TiC) is not only more stable but also much harder
than WC.
For machining ferritic steels causing intensive diffusion and
adhesion wear a large quantity (5 to 25%) of TiC is added with WC
and Co to produce another grade called Mixed carbide.
But increase in TiC content reduces the toughness of the tools.
Therefore, for finishing with light cut but high speed, the harder
grades containing upto 25% TiC are used and for heavy roughing
work at lower speeds lesser amount (5 to 10%) of TiC is suitable.
Up gradation of cemented carbides and their applications
The standards developed by ISO for grouping of carbide tools and
their application ranges are given in Table
Basically three types of ceramic tool bits are available in the market;
• Plain alumina with traces of additives – these white or pink
sintered inserts are cold pressed and are used mainly for
machining cast iron and similar materials at speeds 200 to 250
m/min
• Alumina; with or without additives – hot pressed, black colour,
hard and strong – used for machining steels and cast iron at
VC = 150 to 250 m/min
• Carbide ceramic (Al2O3 + 30% TiC) cold or hot pressed, black
colour, quite strong and enough tough – used for machining
hard cast irons and plain and alloy steels at 150 to 200 m/min.
The heat generated is shared by the chip, cutting tool and the blank.
The apportionment of sharing that heat depends upon the
configuration, size and thermal conductivity of the tool – work
material and the cutting condition. Figure visualizes that maximum
amount of heat is carried away by the flowing chip. From 10 to 20%
of the total heat goes into the tool and some heat is absorbed in the
blank. With the increase in cutting velocity, the chip shares heat
increasingly.
Apportionment of heat amongst chip, tool & job
nose radius of single point tools not only improves surface finish
but also helps in reducing cutting temperature to some extent.
PC = PZ.VC = t soτsf VC
• Water
For its good wetting and spreading properties and very high specific
heat, water is considered as the best coolant and hence employed
where cooling is most urgent.
• Soluble oil
Water acts as the best coolant but does not lubricate. Besides, use of
only water may impair the machine-fixture-tool-work system by
rusting
So oil containing some emulsifying agent and additive like EPA,
together called cutting compound, is mixed with water in a suitable
ratio ( 1 ~ 2 in 20 ~ 50). This milk like white emulsion, called
soluble oil, is very common and widely used in machining and
grinding.
• Cutting oils
Cutting oils are generally compounds of mineral oil to which are
added desired type and amount of vegetable, animal or marine oils
for improving spreading, wetting and lubricating properties.
As and when required some EP additive is also mixed to reduce
friction, adhesion and BUE formation in heavy cuts.
• Chemical fluids
These are occasionally used fluids which are water based where
some organic and or inorganic materials are dissolved in water to
enable desired cutting fluid action.
Schematic (a) and actual view (b) of wear pattern of face milling
insert
In addition to ultimate failure of the tool, the following effects are
also caused by the growing tool-wear :
• increase in cutting forces and power consumption mainly due
to the principal flank wear
• increase in dimensional deviation and surface roughness
mainly due to wear of the tool-tips and auxiliary flank wear
(Vs)
Tool Life
Tool life generally indicates, the amount of satisfactory performance
or service rendered by a fresh tool or a cutting point till it is declared
failed.
Tool life is defined in two ways :
(a) In R & D : Actual machining time (period) by which a fresh
cutting tool (or point) satisfactorily works after which it needs
replacement or reconditioning.
The modern tools hardly fail prematurely or abruptly by mechanical
breakage or rapid plastic deformation.
Those fail mostly by wearing process which systematically grows
slowly with machining time.
In that case, tool life means the span of actual machining time by
which a fresh tool can work before
attaining the specified limit of tool wear.
Mostly tool life is decided by the machining time till flank wear, VB
reaches 0.3 mm or crater wear, KT reaches 0.15 mm.
VTn = C
where, n is called, Taylor’s tool life exponent.
The values of both ‘n’ and ‘c’ depend mainly upon the tool-work
materials and the cutting environment (cutting fluid application).
The value of C depends also on the limiting value of V B undertaken
( i.e., 0.3 mm, 0.4 mm, 0.6 mm etc.)
Often cutting temperature and chip form are also considered for
assessing machinability.
But practically it is not possible to use all those criteria together for
expressing machinability quantitatively.
In a group of work materials, one may appear best in respect of, say,
tool life but may be much poor in respect of cutting forces and
surface finish and so on. Besides that, the machining responses of
any work material in terms of tool life, cutting forces, surface finish
etc. are more or less significantly affected by the variation; known or
unknown, of almost all the parameters or factors associated with
machining process. Machining response of a material may also
change with the processes, i.e. turning, drilling, milling etc.
therefore, there cannot be as such any unique value to express
machinability of any material However, earlier, the relative
machining response of the work materials compared to that of a
standard metal was tried to be evaluated quantitatively only based on
tool life (VB* = 0.33 mm) by an index,