Experimental Investigations to Evaluate the Performance of Alternate Striped Coated Carbide Inserts in Turning of AISI 1040 Steel

During machining in order to improve the performance of the tool, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of chip flow and chip-tool interactions on the rake face. The predominating factors which influence the performance of cutting tool are proper combinations of process variables, tool and workpiece. Focusing more on environmental and economic considerations, dry machining is preferred in the present work to study and evaluate the performance of the multi-striped alternate coated Tungsten Carbide (WC) inserts. Dry turning tests on AISI 1040 steel at various machining conditions have been carried out using uncoated and striped coated cutting tools to deliberate the wear patterns close to the cutting edge. An effective tool coating helps the tool manufacturers to increase the tool life during high speed machining conditions. In the earlier research, in evaluating the performance of single and multi-layer carbide tools, tool wear has been considerably reduced in multi-layer coated tools compared with single layer coated tools. In the current work, to further reduce the tool wear an attempt has been made to assess the tool wear with striped coated carbide tools having alternate bands of hard and soft coatings located close to the cutting edge. The findings are significant in the current study which shows that no crater wear has been observed. Further authors also tried for the optimum rake face utilization by having the proposed band of coatings close to the cutting edge.