Study of cutting force and tool wear during turning of aluminium with WC, PCD and HFCVD coated MCD tools

Enormous developmental work has been made in synthesis of metastable diamond by hot filament chemical vapor deposition (HFCVD) method. In this paper, micro-crystalline diamond (MCD) was deposited on WC–6 wt.% Co cutting tool inserts by HFCVD technique. The MCD coated tool was characterized by the scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and micro Raman spectroscopy (μ-RS). A comparison was made among the MCD tool, uncoated tungsten carbide (WC) tool and polycrystalline diamond (PCD) tool during the dry turning of rolled aluminum. The various major tests were conducted such as surface roughness, cutting force and tool wear, which were taken into consideration to establish a proper comparison among the advanced cutting tools. Surface roughness was measured during machining by Talysurf. The tool wear was studied by SEM after machining. The cutting forces were measured by Kistler 3D-dynamometer during the machining process. The test results indicate that, the CVD coated MCD tool and PCD tool produced almost similar results. But, the price of PCD tools are five times costlier than MCD tools. So, MCD tool would be a better alternative for machining of aluminium.