Lecture 13

Production Engineering
(MET 351)
B.Tech. (6th Sem) Spring 2024
Department of Mechanical Engineering
NIT Srinagar
Course In-charge
Dr. Noor Zaman Khan
Course Outcomes
At the end of the course, a student should be able to:
• CO1: Determine the shear angle and cutting force in machining and understand the basics
of metal cutting.
• CO2: Estimate tool life and explain the tool wear mechanisms and abrasive machining
process.
• CO3: Analyze the forming process behavior for conventional and advanced metal forming
processes.
• CO4: Understand the basics of limits, fits and tolerances in manufacturing.
UNIT II
• Mechanisms of tool wear; Types of tool wear, Tool life: Variables
affecting tool life-Cutting conditions; Tool angles specification
systems; Tool materials; Desirable Properties of Cutting Tool;
Determination of tool life; Machinability, Economics of machining.
• Abrasive Machining Process: Introduction; Grinding: Characteristics

of a grinding wheel; Specification of grinding wheels; Mechanics of
grinding process; Grinding operations; Wheel wear; Surface Finish;
Selection of grinding wheels.
Cutting Tools Materials
• All these properties may not be found in a single tool material.
• Improvements in tool materials have been taking place over the past century to give us better
cutting performance.
• The materials commonly used for making the cutting tools are
1. High carbon steel,
2. High speed steel (HSS),
3. Cemented carbide,
4. Coated carbides,
5. Ceramic,
6. PCD and
7. CBN.
High carbon steel
• These are the earliest tool materials used for machining lower strength materials.
• The major disadvantage with this range of cutting-tool materials is their inability
to withstand high temperatures.
• Beyond 200°C, they lose their hardness and cease to cut.
High speed steel (HSS)
• Developed in 1907 by Taylor and White.

• They were able to significantly improve the cutting speeds by 3 to 5 times above those
that were prevalent at that time using carbon-tool steels.
• High cutting-speed capability- termed as HSS.
• This class of tool materials have significant quantities of tungsten, molybdenum,
chromium and vanadium which provide very good hot hardness and abrasion
resistance.
• Major contribution for hardness: tungsten and molybdenum
• Toughness of high-speed steels is highest among all the general cutting-tool materials.
• HSS is used for machining all materials of low and medium strength and hardness.
Cemented carbide
• CC (around 1926 in Germany) is produced by the powder metallurgy.
• By far, this is the largest percentage of cutting tools used in metal-cutting
production.
• Powders of several carbide compounds are pressed and bonded together in a
matrix (Cobalt) to form the cemented material.
• The usual composition of the straight-grade carbides is 6 wt. % Co and 94
wt. % WC. TaC and TiC are added for machining steel.
• Addition of Titanium carbide (TiC) increases the hot hardness, wear
resistance, and resistance to thermal deformation, but decreases the strength.
• The presence of Tantalum carbide (TaC) increases the hot hardness and
resistance to thermal deformation while decreasing the strength.
• These can retain their hardness to much higher temperatures and as a result
the cutting speeds used are 3 to 6 times that of HSS.
• The tool bit is made of tungsten carbide, while the tool-holder shank is made
from alloy steel to provide the necessary strength and reduce the total cost.
Coated carbides
• Cemented carbide is coated with a thin (~ 5 to 50 um)
layer of a ceramic, e.g., TiC, TiN, 𝐴𝑙2 𝑂3 , and carbon
boron nitride.
• The coated carbides are used for machining superalloys.
• The life of the coated tools is often 2 to 3 times of the
uncoated, while these can be used at higher cutting
speeds, thus increasing productivity.
• These coatings such as titanium carbide, titanium
nitride, aluminium oxide, or multiple coatings of the
above are deposited.
• Coating deposited generally on the carbide tool bits by
the chemical vapour deposition (CVD) process.
Ceramic
• Ceramics are essentially alumina (𝐴𝑙2 𝑂3 ) based high-refractory materials introduced specifically for high-speed
machining of difficult-to-machine materials and cast iron
• Such tools are used for very high speeds but only for light and smooth, continuous cuts.
• These can withstand very high temperatures, are chemically more stable and have higher wear resistance than the
other commercially available cutting-tool materials.
• Low impact strength.
• Poor thermal characteristics.
• About 2 to 5 wt.% of zirconium oxide (Zr𝑂2 ) is added to alumina that increases the fracture toughness of the tool.
• Ceramic tools cannot machine some materials such as aluminium, titanium, since they have strong affinity
towards them, as a result of which chemical reactions are likely to take place.
• Used for brake discs, brake drum, flywheel, cylinder liners etc.
PCD
• Diamond is the hardest known (Knoop hardness ~ 8000 kg/𝑚𝑚2 )
material that can be used as a cutting tool.
• It has most of the desirable properties such as high hardness, good
thermal conductivity, low friction coefficient, and good wear
resistance.
• It is used when good surface finish and dimensional accuracy are
required.
• Factor against PCD: high cost, possibility of oxidation in air, allotropic transformation to graphite above
temperatures of 700°C, very high brittleness and difficulties associated in shaping it to suitable tool form.
• However, natural diamond is unreliable in performance because of the impurities present.
• Artificial diamonds are basically polycrystalline (PCD) in nature. Polycrystalline diamond tools are
metallurgically bonded to a tungsten carbide substrate and cut into small bits.
• Strong chemical affinity at high temp. PCD not recommended for Ti, Carbon steel, Ni based alloys, Co based
alloys.
Cubic Boron Nitride (CBN)
• Introduced in 1962. CBN is next in hardness only to diamond (Knoop hardness ~ 4700 kg/mm2).
• It is not a natural material but produced in the laboratory using a high-temperature/high-pressure process
similar to the making of artificial diamond.
• CBN is less reactive with materials like hardened steels, nickel base and cobalt-based super alloys, and
hence is used effectively for machining these alloys.
• These are more expensive than cemented carbides but in view of the higher accuracy and productivity
possible for difficult to machine materials, they are used in special applications as mentioned above.
• However many of the cutting-tool manufacturers such as Sandvik, Widia provide detailed literature to
help in the choice of cutting tools.

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Production Engineering

• Abrasive Machining Process: Introduction; Grinding: Characteristics

• Developed in 1907 by Taylor and White.

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