Machinability Control — A Topic of Great Importance to the Engineering Industry

More complicated and expensive machine tools together with production with limited manpower requires disturbance free and safe manufacturing, to avoid expensive and unexpected stops. The result of a machining operation is based on the interaction between manufacturing method, the machine tool and the material. There exist few well-documented test methods. Mainly the ISO 3685 is referred to, at least in Europe. This single point turning test is, however, based on cutting tools no longer available and on rather long times in cut, as the test specimen has a length of 400 – 600 mm.

In order to reach good conformity between the test results and a production environment, the applied test methods need to be fine-tuned to better simulate reality. For that reason, the ISO 3685 test method has been slightly modified and new test methods have been developed to determine a raw material's machinability. Among others ways to evaluate the impact from short machining cycles, 1 – 15 seconds, through different discontinuous machining modes have been developed, which will be described here.

Important parameters affecting the manufacturing result are tool life / tool cost versus cutting data, chip formation to avoid chip jamming, surface roughness, and component distortion. This paper will present the relationship between certain parameters and the raw material properties; steel grade and composition and cutting forces evaluated through different methods.