Machinability of SMART Forged Materials in Intermittent Cutting

The gear shafts used in automotive transmissions are manufactured by forging high-toughness structural steels such as chrome steel or chrome-molybdenum steel, heat treating them, and then shaping the gear by cutting. In the conventional manufacturing process, there is waste of energy and work time because the forging and heat treatment processes for imparting machinability are separate. We present a new forging process that successfully imparts machinability by controlling the cooling time after forging. This research investigated the cutting machinability properties of materials made by the new SMART forging process. Mainly, as the result of investigating under the intermittent cutting about the progress of the tool wear, very good results could be obtained.