Abstract
Numerous papers have been published associated with the development of thin hard coatings having diverse architectures (e.g., multicomponent, multilayer, graded, nanocomposite etc.) and deposition of these thin coatings on cutting tools to enhance their performance and life. While considerable success has been reported on enhancing the cutting process (i.e., increasing productivity, reducing manufacturing costs, improving product quality and competitiveness) by the application of coatings such as TiN, TiC, TiAlN, TiCrN etc., there are also number of cases where coatings have failed to improve the performance and life of the cutting tools. Often the coating itself is blamed for the poor performance of the coated cutting tools, but in practice the characteristics and condition of the cutting edges prior to coating deposition might have even greater impact in failure of the system. For example, if the cutting edges are very sharp, the coating will start to break off from that sharp point and the whole purpose of coating application on the cutting tool would be undermined. The paper presents the results of success and failure stories of coated cutting tools and the necessary steps should be taken to achieve the objective of improved performance from the coated tools. In majority of cases, the commercial coaters will coat the cutting tools without having any prior knowledge of the condition of the cutting tool (i.e., surface roughness, edge sharpness, burr on the cutting edges etc.), end application, cutting conditions and associated wear mechanisms of the cutting tool. The necessity of adopting a systematic approach to bridge the communication gap amongst the cutting tool manufactures, tool coaters and the end users of the coated tools is addressed in this paper.
Original language | English |
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Publication status | Published - 2008 |
Event | 3rd International Conference on Surface Coatings and Nanostructured Materials (NanoSMat 2008) - Barcelona, Spain Duration: 1 Jan 2008 → … |
Conference
Conference | 3rd International Conference on Surface Coatings and Nanostructured Materials (NanoSMat 2008) |
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Period | 1/01/08 → … |