Cutting Edge Damage in Grinding of Cemented Carbides Micro End Mills - 2017 - Ceramics International
Cutting Edge Damage in Grinding of Cemented Carbides Micro End Mills - 2017 - Ceramics International
Ceramics International
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ceramint
Cutting edge damage in grinding of cemented carbides micro end mills MARK
⁎
Peng Gao, Zhiqiang Liang , Xibin Wang, Tianfeng Zhou, Shidi Li, Suyan Zhang, Zhibing Liu
Key Laboratory of Fundamental Science for Advanced Machining, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
A R T I C L E I N F O A BS T RAC T
Keywords: Micro mills are widely applied in the micro manufacturing and mainly fabricated using the grinding method.
Micro mills Cutting edges have significant influences on the performance of micro mills such as the micro mill life and
Grinding machining quality. In this paper, the cutting edge damage mechanisms in the grinding of cemented carbides
Cemented carbides micro mills are investigated. The micro end mills grinding experiments are carried out and the cutting edge
Cutting edge
maximum edge damage width and surface roughness of the end teeth flank are measured. The results show that
the micro fractures and micro cracks are generated in the cutting edge following micro pits in the grinding
surface. The grain size and composition of cemented carbides have significant impacts on the damage of the
cutting edge. The maximum edge damage width increases with the increase of Co binder content and WC grain
sizes. However, a better flank quality with less micro pits is obtained as the reduction of Co binder content and
grain size of WC.
1. Introduction method [4]. During the grinding process of micro tool, the cutting edge
and surface quality of micro mills is strongly affected by the tool
Micro mills are widely applied in micro manufacturing such as material property. Ohmori et al. [5] reported cemented carbides can be
MEMS, biotechnology and aerospace. Micro milling an effective way to stably removed in ductile mode during the micro tools grinding, and
produce more complex three-dimension geometries micro products in they found the surface characteristics of micro tool exert extremely
a wide range of materials [1]. Unlike traditional cutting, the micro strong effects on mechanical strength of the tool. Zhan et al. [6] found
machining characteristics are affected by micro mill edge radius [2]. the grain size of tool material is the most influential parameter on the
When the depth of cut is equal to the damage width of tool cutting grinding quality of micro mill, followed by grinding wheel grain size,
edge, the size effect occurs during the cutting process easily. However, feed rate and grinding speed. Furthermore, in traditional tool grinding,
in order to obtain high accuracy miniaturized parts, the depth of cut of Denkena et al. [7] found the grinding quality of the cutter mainly
micro milling often is needed to be less than 1 μm in some micro depends on the cutter material removal mechanism which is signifi-
products manufacturing. Under this condition, the cutting edge and cantly influenced by the cutter material grain size. Among these
surface damages of micro mill have significant impacts on the tool life reports, during the fabrication process of micro mill, the micro cracks
and machining quality. Thus, the tool surface and cutting edge are and micro fracture are often generated in cutting edge of micro mill,
crucial to the quality of micro mills products. and micro pits are often generated in mill surface due to the property of
For a long micro mill life and good machining quality, the tool material. The existence of the cutting edge micro fractures and
fabrication of micro mills requires a precision manufacturing process. micro cracks affects the strength of the mills significantly. However,
Cemented carbides are often selected as micro tool material, because it few studies investigated the cutting edge damages in the fabrication of
can be used to machine a large variety material and be fabricated to a micro tool, and especially the effects of grain size and composition of
complex tool easily. However, due to the limitation of the carbide cemented carbides on the cutting edge damages of micro mill are
grains size and sintering technique, the sharp tool is difficult to be unclear.
processed [3]. Therefore, a great challenge still exists in micro milling In the last several years, great progress research has been made in
manufacture to achieve high quality and precision micro milling tools. the effects of the grain size and composition of cemented carbides on
As a main method, grinding is often used to fabricate high precision the quality of cemented carbides grinding. For instance, Hegeman et al.
micro mills for the high material removal efficiency and high machin- [8] reported the cemented carbides grinding removal behavior depends
ing accuracy. For instance, 10 μm diameter single edge helical micro on the ratio between the abrasive grains sizes and the WC grains sizes,
end mills of cemented carbides have been fabricated using grinding and the surface roughness depends on WC grains size and small grains
⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (Z. Liang).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ceramint.2017.05.336
Received 26 April 2017; Received in revised form 26 May 2017; Accepted 27 May 2017
Available online 28 May 2017
0272-8842/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l. All rights reserved.
P. Gao et al. Ceramics International 43 (2017) 11331–11338
size produces high surface roughness. Zhang et al. [9] found the surface f=20 mm/min and grinding speed v=24 m/s. The resin bonded dia-
generation mechanism of cemented carbides high speed grinding is mond grinding wheel (2000#) (Henan UN Whirlwind Diamond Co.,
material plastic deformation WC/Co grain dislodgement and WC Ltd) and grinding oil are used in the experiment. The single bevel
grains crush. Liu et al. [10] demonstrated the material removal grinding wheel (1) with diameter 135 mm and edge angle 45° is used to
mechanism of cemented carbide presents ductile mode, semi-brittle fabricate the peripheral rake face, the peripheral flank face and the end
mode and brittle mode with increase of depth of cut in the groove teeth gash. The single bevel grinding wheel (2) with diameter 100 mm
grinding. Yang et al. [11] discussed a deformed/damaged thin layer and edge angle 45° is used to fabricate the end teeth flank face. Each
which contains fragmented carbides and micro cracks together with experiment is repeated three times. The cemented carbides with
high compressive residual stresses are introduced during the grinding different grain sizes and composition including K55SF, DK450UF,
process of WC-Co cemented carbides. However, most of above studies DK500UF and DK120UF (GUHRING Co., Ltd.) are adopted during the
investigated the traditional grinding of cemented carbides. The micro experiment. The mechanical property of different grain sizes and
grinding of the cemented carbides tool material is rarely investigated. composition cemented carbides tool materials are shown in Table 1.
The cutting edge damage mechanism of the cemented carbides micro The fabricated micro mills are cleaned using ultrasonic cleaning
tools grinding are still unclear. machine before measuring. The surface roughness Ra of micro mills
Herein, the micro mills of cemented carbides grinding experiments end teeth first clearance is measured using optical profiling system
are carried out. The grinding morphology of the micro end mills surface (Wyko NT1100, Veeco Co., Ltd.), and the maximum edge damage
are observed, and the maximum edge damage width of cutting edge width Rk of micro mills cutting edge in rake face is also measured by
and end teeth flank surface roughness of the mills are measured. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM, FEI Quanta 650FEG).
effects of grain size and composition of cemented carbides on the
quality of micro mills are investigated. The cutting edge and surface
damage mechanism in the grinding of cemented carbides micro end 3. Results and discussion
mills are discussed.
3.1. Cutting edge damage mode in grinding of micro mills
2. Experimental procedures The grinding defects of the fabricated micro end mills are shown in
Fig. 3. It could be found that the damages of the micro mill are mainly
The micro end mills experiments are carried out on a six axes CNC manifested as micro fractures and micro cracks in the cutting edge, and
tool grinding machine (CNS7d, by Makino Seiki Co., Ltd.) as shown in micro pits and cracks in the grinding surface. There are many plastic
Fig. 1. During the grinding process, the mill shank is clamped to make scratching grooves and feed masks in feed direction and micro pits and
the mill axis coincide with A-axis, and the mill could move along U-axis micro cracks randomly distributed in the grinding surface (Fig. 3).
and Y-axis and rotate around W-axis. While the grinding wheel moves Some WC grains are broken in the cutting edge and the broken WC
along X-axis and Z-axis. The resolution of the machine in X-axis, Y-axis grains can be observed in micro fractures of cutting edge. Regular
and Z-axis are 0.0001 mm. The position precision of the grinding shape organization structure is found in the micro fracture of the
machine in X-axis, Y-axis and Z-axis are 0.0035 mm, and repositioning cutting edge, which indicates some WC particles are broken in the
precision the grinding machine in X-axis, Y-axis and Z-axis are cutting edge. It could be seen from the micro fractures that the WC
0.0015 mm. Based on the above grinding method, the simulation grains are pulled out from the WC/Co or WC/WC boundaries in the
software MSPS of Makino Seiki grinding machine is used to simulate cutting edge (Fig. 3(b)). It indicates that the micro cracks and micro
the motion of the grinding procedure before the experiments. fractures of the cutting edge tend to propagate twisting around the
The same geometries of micro helical end mills are fabricated with boundaries of WC/Co or WC/WC. In order to evaluate the cutting edge
diameter 0.5 mm, helix angle 30°, rake angle 3° and relief angle 12° damage of the micro mill, the maximum edge damage width Rk is
during the grinding experiments (Fig. 2) . The main cutting edge is defined as shown in Fig. 3(d). It also can be seen that there is a thin
formed by the peripheral rake face and peripheral flank face. The deformed layer made of fragmented and plastic deformed WC particles
peripheral rake face and peripheral flank face rough grinding para- from the fracture cross-section of the mills cutting edge tip. The
meters are depth of cut ap=20 μm, feed rate f=800 mm/min and deformed layer becomes denser with the WC particles breakage and
grinding speed v=24 m/s, and the finish grinding parameters are plastic deformation during grinding process. The cutting edge damages
ap=4 μm, feed rate f=400 mm/min and grinding speed v=24 m/s. of the micro mills significantly affect the strength of the mills.
Meanwhile, the end teeth geometries rough grinding parameters are Cutting edge tip fracture of micro mill is one of the most significant
depth of cut ap=20 μm, feed rate f=200 mm/min and grinding speed damage effects on the performance of micro mill. Unreasonable select
v=24 m/s, and the finish grinding parameters are ap=4 μm, feed rate of grinding parameters and tool material defects will lead to the cutting
11332
P. Gao et al. Ceramics International 43 (2017) 11331–11338
11333
P. Gao et al. Ceramics International 43 (2017) 11331–11338
tool material DK500UF, DK450UF and DK120UF. Besides, with the The Co binder content of cemented carbides has significant effects
increase of WC grain sizes, the maximum edge damage width Rk and the on the damage of the cutting edge. The Co binder can obviously
surface roughness Ra increase in the cases of the micro mills fabricated improve the toughness of the cemented carbides material [12]. The
with cemented carbides K55SF and DK450UF. reduction of Co binder content can reduce the effects of the low bond
The end teeth rake face morphology of micro mills fabricated with strength phase boundaries, resulting in more micro pits on grinding
different tool materials are shown in Fig. 7. It could be seen that the surface. However, the material presents more brittle and more cutting
WC grain sizes and binder content of the cemented carbides tool edge micro fractures and micro cracks occur. Due to the low boundaries
material have significant impacts on surface morphology of the micro binding strength of the WC/Co phase boundaries, the surface of the
mills. With different cemented carbide materials, the surfaces of micro mills fabricated with higher Co binder content material (DK500UF)
mills are covered with different characteristic plastic grinding grooves, appears more micro pits around the WC grains phase boundaries. With
feed marks, micro fracture and randomly distributed micro pits and the increase of Co binder content, the contact of WC grains is separated
cracks. It also seen that the micro pits easily occur at the junction of by Co phase and the WC grain connectivity decreases. The reduction of
three WC grains (Fig. 7(b)). The surface of micro mill with smaller WC grain connectivity and grain size will reduce the micro fracture of
grain size of WC is much smooth with less micro pits, which leads to a cutting edge along the WC/WC grain boundaries, which improves the
better morphology. Furthermore, the surface of the micro mills fracture strength of the cutting edge. Therefore, the micro mills
fabricated with tool material DK500UF and DK120UF has more micro fabricated with K55SF has a smaller maximum edge damage width
cracks and micro pits (Fig. 7(c) and (d)). In the case of the tool material Rk value than that of DK450UF (Fig. 6). Moreover, the smaller grain
DK500UF, DK450UF and DK120UF, the generation of the micro size of WC tool material means the reduction of the free path in Co
cracks or fractures tends to twist the bridging of WC/WC or WC/Co binder, which will enhance the interfacial energy between WC particles
due to the low bond strength of the boundaries. However, micro and Co binder phase [13]. The enhanced interfacial energy could
fractures are also found in the scratch micro grooves of the mill surface reduce the generation of micro fractures and cracks in the cutting edge
fabricated with 0.2–0.5 μm material (K55SF) (Fig. 7(a)). of the mill. The decreased WC grain size of tool material also improves
Fig. 5. Cutting edge morphology of micro mill fabricated with different materials. (a) K55SF (b) DK500UF (c) DK450UF (d) DK120UF.
11334
P. Gao et al. Ceramics International 43 (2017) 11331–11338
Fig. 6. Maximum edge damage width Rk and surface roughness Ra of micro mills.
2
the strength and hardness of the cutting edge which leads to the λr = (0.214 − 0.691VCo + 5.975VCo )DWC (1)
reduction the cutting edge damage of the mill. Larger grain size of WC
tool material means the phase boundaries are longer and the effects of Where, VCo is the mass fraction of cobalt; DWC is the average WC grain size.
different hardness of WC and Co materials on material removal rate are According to the Eq. (1), the mean free path in Co of tool materials
more obvious. Therefore, with larger WC grain size of the tool material, K55SF, DK450UF, DK500UF and DK120UF can be obtained 0.04–
the cutting edge of micro mill tends to be more brittle fracture and the 0.1001, 0.1001, 0.1086 and 0.0975, respectively. With increase of Co
material removal mechanism tends to be fracture mode. However, in binder content, the mean free path in Co phase reduces. The mean free
the cases of the tool materials K55SF and DK450UF, a cutting edge path affects the material removal mechanism of the cemented carbides
with denser and less micro cracks is found in the mill fabricated with during grinding. The generation of micro pits is related to the mean
smaller grain size of WC material (Fig. 5). free path in Co phase. It can be seen that the end teeth rake face micro
The WC grains size and Co binder content will affect the mean free path pits of micro mills increase with increase of the mean free path in
in Co binder. The mean free path in Co binder λr can be evaluated [14]: cobalt phase (Fig. 7).
Fig. 7. End teeth rake face morphology of micro mills fabricated with different materials. (a) K55SF (b) DK500UF (c) DK450UF (d) DK120UF.
11335
P. Gao et al. Ceramics International 43 (2017) 11331–11338
11336
P. Gao et al. Ceramics International 43 (2017) 11331–11338
of the soft binders reduces the binders support, and micro cracks prone grains and Co binders squeezing out. The fine-grain cemented carbides
to occur [20,21]. When the diamond grits passes through the WC/Co presents a better removal behavior during scratching experiment, and
phase boundaries, the compressive stress of Co phase becomes tensile the fine-grain material removal is dominated by plastic plowing, while
stress. Due to the irreversible of plastic deformation, micro fractures the coarse-grain is brittle removal including grain micro-fracture and
occur in Co binder of WC/Co phase boundaries. When tensile stress pull-out [22]. The brittle removal behavior is more prone to produce
value reaches a critical value, micro cracks begin to form in the WC micro pits due to the broken of WC grain. The micro pits are the result
grain phase boundaries, and then propagate along WC/Co phase of the dislodgement of hard WC grains [12]. The fine-grain material
boundaries or WC grains boundaries [17]. Subsequently, due to the has greater bond strength between WC grain and Co binder. Therefore,
impact stress of grits grains, some Co binders begin to fall off from the the grinding surface with fine-grain material has few micro pits. During
phase boundary which also leads to the formation of micro pits and the removal process of WC grain, sliding occurs along a grain
micro cracks between WC particles and binders (Fig. 7). As shown in boundary. At the junction of three WC grains, different stress con-
Fig. 11, the micro cracks are generated around the WC particles. Under centration produces in different regions due to the disorder of WC
the impact of varying stress, the Co grains easily fall off from phase grain boundary orientation. The stress distribution is more complex at
boundaries and the surface micro cracks mainly occur in grains the junction of three WC grains, and the stress is difficult to release.
boundaries which have low separation energy. The phase boundaries The micro pits are easy to nucleate at this position, and the formation
between WC grain and Co present more micro fracture of hard WC of micro pits is the result of grain boundary incompatible sliding.
Fig. 10. Cutting edge damages generation mechanism in grinding of micro mill.
11337
P. Gao et al. Ceramics International 43 (2017) 11331–11338
11338