Experimental investigation into tool wear, cutting forces, and resulting surface finish during dry and flood coolant slot milling of Inconel 718

Abstract

Inconel 718 superalloy is a widely used material in aerospace due to its high strength, corrosion resistance, and high resistance to thermal fatigue. Excellent mechanical and thermal properties also make Inconel 718 one of the most difficult-to-machine alloys. This study aims to take a different approach of analyzing tool wear during machining of Inconel 718 by measuring worn-out area on each flute from three different faces of flute. This paper also includes analysis of cumulative tool wear, cutting forces, surface roughness, topography, burr formation, and chip morphology at various machining parameters and cooling conditions. The cutting speed was kept constant at 60 m/min due to the goal of machining at highest possible speed and the limitation in maximum spindle speed of the machine tool. Experiments were carried out in dry and flood coolant machining using uncoated carbide tools by varying depth of cut and feed rate for four different settings each. It was found that the amount of tool wear varied for different flutes when measured from top, rake, and back faces of each flute, even for the same tool. The back and rake faces exhibit more chipping wear when machining is carried out at higher depth of cut, irrespective of the cooling conditions. At the same machining conditions for the range of parameters selected in this study, flood coolant machining resulted in slightly higher tool wear at the back and rake faces of cutting flutes and generated higher cutting speed, which may be interrelated. The gradual increase in tool wear over time resulted in an increase in surface roughness from entry to exit of a 76.2 mm machined slot. Flood coolant machining resulted in slightly smoother surface finish at the lower settings of depth of cut and feed rate, while the burr formation was marginally higher in flood coolant machining during machining at higher feed rate and depth of cut. The amount of serration was found to increase specifically with the increase of feed rate and was found to be higher for dry machining compared to flood coolant machining at the same parameter settings. Finally, the new approach of tool wear analysis from different faces of individual cutting flute could provide important guidelines for predicting tool life or potential catastrophic tool failure during machining of Inconel 718.