An experimental study on the effect of tool geometry on tool wear and surface roughness in hard turning

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of tool geometry (cutting edge angle, rake angle, and inclination angle) and to optimize tool wear and surface roughness in hard turning of AISI 1055 (52HRC) hardened steel by using TiN coated mixed ceramic inserts. The results show that the inclination angle is the major factor affecting the tool wear and the surface roughness in hard turning. With the increase in negative rake and inclination angles, the tool wear decreases, and the surface roughness increases. However, the surface roughness will decrease when the inclination angle increases to overpass a certain limit. This is a new and significant point in the research of the hard turning process. From this result, the large negative inclination angle (lambda = -10 degrees) should be applied to reduce the surface roughness and the tool wear simultaneously. With the optimal cutting tool angles in the research, the hard machining process is improved remarkably with decreases of surface roughness and tool wear 8.3% and 41.3%, respectively in comparison with the standard tool angles. And the proposed tool-post design approach brings an effective method to change the tool insert angles using standard tool-holders to improve hard or other difficult-to-cut materials turning quality.