Wear mechanisms of diamond tools and their material basis in machining iron-based materials

Diamond tools are widely used in ultra-precision machining due to their excellent physicochemical properties, enabling workpiece materials to achieve mirror surface quality. However, when machining iron-based materials, diamond tools are prone to graphitization due to electrochemistry reactions between carbon and iron atoms, this reduces the sharpness of the tool cutting edge, which further affects or even seriously damages the machined surface quality. Therefore, understanding the diamond tools wear mechanism and corresponding wear suppression methods is crucial for enhancing the machined surface quality. This paper reviews the wear mechanisms of diamond tools and their material basis in machining iron-based materials. Firstly, the paper reviews the affinity between iron and carbon atoms from the perspective of material basis and reviews the selection of diamond tool crystal plane orientations for machining iron-based materials. Secondly, this paper summarizes the wear mechanisms for diamond tools used in machining iron-based materials. Finally, aiming at the wear mechanism, the paper emphasizes suppression methods for diamond tool wear during machining iron-based materials. Through the comprehensive study of these aspects, this review combines the material basis and diamond tool wear mechanism, contributes to the suppression of diamond tool wear in ultra-precision machining of iron-based materials and the improvement of machined surface quality, and also provides theoretical support and reference for subsequent scholars to propose new schemes that may suppress the graphitization of diamond tools.