Experimental Studying of the Variations of Surface Roughness and Dimensional Accuracy in Dry Hard Turning Operation

Hard turning in dry condition using cubic boron nitride tools, as an alternative of traditional grinding operation, is an advanced machining operation in which hardened steel with the hardness greater than 46 HRc is machined without the use of any coolant. In the hard turning process, due to its hard nature, usually the cutting depth is selected lower than or equal to the nose radius, and the cutting zone is mainly limited within the tool nose area. Thus, unlike the traditional turning, the effect of the nose radius on the surface finish and dimensional accuracy becomes more complicated. Therefore, in this paper, firstly, the effect of processing parameters such as nose radius on the surface roughness and dimensional accuracy is investigated. Then, the relationship between the surface finish and dimensional accuracy variations with vibration, cutting forces, and tool wear is studied experimentally. The results revealed that feed rate is the most important factor influencing the surface roughness, whereas spindle speed and cutting depth are insignificant factors. On the other hand, cutting depth and spindle speed have the greatest effect on the dimensional accuracy, while nose radius has no significant effect. The vibration and wear analysis revealed that compared with the vibration, the tool wear has no considerable effect on the dimensional accuracy. It was also observed that the spindle speed has a contradictory effect on the surface roughness and dimensional accuracy. The best dimensional accuracy is obtained at 500 rpm, while the best surface quality is achieved at 2000 rpm. The obtained results also showed that increasing the feed rate from a particular value not only leads to no significant changes in the surface roughness value but in some cases can also decrease the surface roughness. According to the analysis results, the lowest cutting depth, the moderate feed rate, and the speed lower than 1100 rpm provide the best dimensional accuracy. Compared with carbides and ceramics, cubic boron nitride tools produce a better surface roughness at both higher cutting depth and speed. 0.202 µm is the best surface roughness that was obtained at rε = 1.2 mm, N = 2000 rpm, f = 0.08 mm/rev, d = 0.5 mm which is comparable with the surface quality obtained by the conventional grinding operation.