Cutting and wearing characteristics of TiC-based cermets cutters with nano-TiN addition

This paper deals with cutting and wearing characteristics of nano-TiN-modified TiC-based cermets cutters when cutting normalized and quenched medium carbon steels. Results show that the cermets cutters have much longer endurances than YT15 and YG8 cemented carbides cutters in the tests of cutting normalized steel, especially at lower cutting speed. The main failure model of cermets cutters is wearing. When cutting quenched steel, the failure mode of the cermets cutters changes to chipping under each cutting condition. The cermets cutters also show the advantages in endurance under the conditions of low cutting speed, low feed rate and low cutting depth, but their endurances would drop obviously once each of above parameters is raised to some value. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.