Next Generation Cutting Tools for Manufacturing Advanced Lightweight Materials

Important results from the project

The aim of the project is to investigate the wear of cutting tools with different surface textures and cryogenic cooling under high pressure when machining silicon carbide reenforced aluminium.

Expected long term effects

The results from conducted experiments show that the use of cryogenic cooling through liquid nitrogen under high pressure has generally reduced tool wear by 20 percent. The introduction of texture on the rake face of the tool with a fish scale structure reduces tool wear by 10 percent. Furthermore, a reduced chip contact area of 20 percent is generally obtained with the textures and cryogenic cooling.

Approach and implementation

Equipment has been built to enable experiments during machining with liquid nitrogen under high pressure, 24 bar. A number of cutting tools have been provided with several different types of surface texturing on the rake face for evaluation regarding chip contact area and tool wear when machining of silicon carbide reinforced aluminium. The tools have then been evaluated under a microscope.