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Chapter Three

Materials and Geometry of

Tools

Tool Material
With the progress of the industrial world it has been
needed to continuously develop and improve the
cutting tool materials and geometry;
• to meet the growing demands for high
productivity, quality and economy of machining
• to enable effective and efficient machining of
the exotic materials that are coming up with the
rapid and vast progress of science and
technology
• for precision and ultra-precision machining
• for micro and even nano machining demanded
by the day and future.

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Cont’d…
 The capability and overall performance of the
cutting tools depend upon,
• the cutting tool materials
• the cutting tool geometry
• proper selection and use of those tools
• the machining conditions and the environments
 Out of which the tool material plays the most vital
role.

Desirable properties of tool material

1. High hardness,
2. High hardness temperature, hot hardness,
3. Resistance to abrasion, wear due to severe sliding friction,
4. Wear resistance,
5. Chipping of the cutting edges,
6. High toughness (impact strength),
7. Strength to resist bulk deformation,
8. Good chemical stability (inertness or negligible affinity with the work
material),
9. Adequate thermal properties,
10. High elastic modulus (stiffness)
11. Correct geometry and surface finish,

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Cont’d…

Tool failure modes identify the important properties

that a tool material should possess:

 Toughness - to avoid fracture failure

 Hot hardness - ability to retain hardness at high

temperatures

 Wear resistance - hardness is the most important

property to resist abrasive wear

Cont’d…
Typical hot hardness relationships for selected tool
materials.

Plain carbon steel shows a rapid loss of hardness as

temperature increases. High speed steel is substantially
better, while cemented carbides and ceramics are
significantly harder at elevated temperatures

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Tool Materials
 High Speed Steel; HSS
 High Carbon Steel
 Coated High Speed Steel
 Cast Non-Ferrous Alloys
 Carbides
 Ceramic
 Boron Nitride
 Diamond
 Coated tools

General Characteristics of Cutting tool materials

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Cont’d…

High Speed Steel; HSS

 Highly alloyed tool steel capable of maintaining hardness at
elevated temperatures better than low alloy steels,
 One of the most important cutting tool materials
 Especially suited to applications involving complicated tool
geometries, such as drills, taps, milling cutters, and broaches,
 Two basic types (AISI)
1. Tungsten-type, designated T- grades
2. Molybdenum-type, designated M-grades
 High Speed Steel Composition: Typical alloying ingredients are:
 Tungsten and/or Molybdenum
 Chromium and Vanadium
 Carbon, of course
 Cobalt in some grades

Cont’d…
High Carbon Steel
 Contains, steel and carbon (0.90 to 1.30 wt%C)

 Small amount of Silicon , manganese and chromium are used

to increase hardness

 heat treatable

 Inexpensive ,easily shaped ,sharpened

 suitable for machining soft materials; like ,magnesium, brass ,

aluminum, wood, plastic, etc.

 Low wear resistance

 Limited for low cutting speed

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Cont’d…
Coated High Speed Steel
 Coating of HSS cutting tool with a thin layer (2 to 6μm) of
refractory metal carbide or nitride e.g TiC, TiN,

 The cost of coated tool is 2 to 5 times the cost of plain HSS

tool,

 The life of a coated tool is 2 to 5 times the life of plain HSS

tool,

 Films 2 to 6μm thickness adhere well and withstand minor

elastic, plastic, and thermal loads. Thicker coatings tend to
fracture under the typical thermomechanical stresses of
machining.

Cont’d…

Carbides
 Main material is tungsten carbide (WC)
 Manufactured by powder metallurgy techniques
 Hard and good resistance to cratering
 extremely high compressive strength
 retain cutting edge up to 1100 oC
 rake angle must be small or negative

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Cont’d…
Diamond
 The hardest known material
 extremely brittle
 It is chemically inert and high thermal conductivity
 Low friction, high wear resistance
 extremely long tool life
 used to machine either very hard materials like, tool steels, etc., or
soft materials like , aluminum, plastics, etc.
 cutting speeds may be as high as 25 m/sec
 used as dressing of grinding wheels
 expensive

Tool Geometry

There are basically two types of cutting tools:

1. Single point tools: Used for turning, boring, shaping, and

planing.

2. Multiple cutting edge tools: Used for drilling, reaming,

tapping, milling, broaching, and sawing.

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Cont’d…

Single Point Tool Geometry:

(a) Seven elements of single-point tool geometry; and
(b) The tool signature convention that defines the seven
elements

Cont’d…
• ways of holding and presenting the cutting edge for a single-
point tool; there are three ways of holding:
a) solid tool, typical of HSS;
b) brazed insert, one way of holding a cemented carbide
insert; and
c) mechanically clamped insert, used for cemented
carbides, ceramics, and other very hard tool materials

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Cont’d…

Tool Nomenclature

• The tool point: is all that part of the tool which is shaped to
produce the cutting edges and face,
• The cutting edge: is the portion of the face edge along which
the chip is separated from the workpiece. It consists usually of
the side-cutting edge, the nose, and the end-cutting edge.

Cont’d…

• The nose: is the corner, arc, or chamfer joining the side-

cutting and the end cutting edges.
• The shank is that part of the tool on one end of which the
point is formed or the tip or bit is supported. It is supported
on the tool post of the machine
• The flank of the tool is the surface or surfaces below and
adjacent to the cutting edge.

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Tool Angles

Back-rake angle: The angle between the face of the tool and the
base of the shank or holder.
• This is usually measured in a plane through the side-cutting
edge and at right angles to the base.
Side-rake angle: It is usually measured in a plane perpendicular
to the base and to the side-cutting edge

Cont’d…

Side-relief angle: The angle between the portion of the side

flank immediately below the side-cutting edge and a line drawn
through this cutting edge perpendicular to the base.
End-relief angle: The angle between the portion of the end flank
immediately below the end-cutting edge and a line drawn
through that cutting edge perpendicular to the base.

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Cont’d…

Clearance angle: The angle between a plane perpendicular to

the base of the tool or holder and that portion of the flank
immediately below the relieved flank
Side-cutting-edge angle: The angle between the straight side
cutting edge and the side of the tool shank or holder.

Cont’d…

End-cutting-edge angle: The angle between the cutting edge on

the end of the tool and a line at right angles to the side of the
tool shank.

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Concept of rake and clearance angles of cutting tools

Definition –
• Rake angle (γ): Angle of inclination of rake surface from
reference plane
• clearance angle (α): Angle of inclination of clearance or
flank surface from the finished surface.

Relief angle
 Relief angle controls the interference/rubbing at tool-
work piece:
 Too big- tool may chip off
 Too small- flank wear
 Small relief angle is employed for less tough (brittle
materials)
 Increasing the relief angle provides cleaner cut and
by reducing friction at the flank which reduces the
cutting force

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Side Cutting edge angle

• It influences the direction of chip flow

• Increasing the side cutting edge angle decreases the
thickness of the chip and increases the width of the
chip with the same feed rate
• Excessive side cutting edge angle will cause
chattering

End Cutting edge angle

• Its purpose is to prevent the rubbing of the cutting edge and

finished surface
• Excessive end cutting angle weakens the cutting edge
• Very small angles will result high pressure normal to the work
surface which will cause:
 Chattering
 Difficulty of penetration

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Nose Radius
• Small radius (sharp tool) roughing operation,
• Increasing nose radius provides:
 Good surface finish
 Improves tool life
• Too large radii causes chattering (Violent vibration of
a machine during cutting
• Good practice is to use largest permissible radius

Rake Angles
• Three possible types of rake angles

Relative advantages of such rake angles are:

• Positive rake – helps reduce cutting force and thus
cutting power requirement.
• Negative rake – to increase edge-strength and life of
the tool
• Zero rake – to simplify design and manufacture of the
form tools

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