A comparative study on tool life and wear of uncoated and coated cutting tools in turning of tungsten heavy alloys

In turning of tungsten heavy alloys (WHAs), severe tool wear and short tool life are usually encountered. In this paper, we investigated the cutting performance of common cutting tool materials in turning of WHAs under oil lubrication condition. Experiments were conducted on three different cutting tools, namely, the TiAlN-coated carbide cutting tool, uncoated carbide cutting tool, and Ti (C, N)-coated cermet cutting tool, to study their tool lives and wear behaviors. Tool life, wear progression, and cutting force were investigated under different cutting parameters. Meanwhile, the wear patterns and mechanisms were studied. Flank wear was found to be the major wear pattern of the three selected cutting tools. In all the selected cutting tools, adhesion and oxidation were the main wear mechanisms discovered. Compared with the other cutting tools, chipping, notch wear, and diffusion wear were observed in the uncoated carbide cutting tool. The experimental results revealed that the TiAlN-coated carbide cutting tool exhibited a better cutting performance than the uncoated carbide cutting tool and Ti (C, N)-coated cermet cutting tool in terms of tool life which reaches 15 km by using optimized parameters.