Experimental Milling Studies on Hardened Steels - A Review

Abstract

Hardened steels have numerous applications in the construction of molds and dies due, in particular, to their outstanding thermo-mechanical characteristics, such as wear resistance and high stiffness, but especially dimensional stability at high temperatures. Machined surfaces are conditioned to have important tribological characteristics. Thus, a high quality of machined surfaces is achieved by milling processes with high cutting speeds. These types of processes even manage to replace grinding or electro-erosion machining processes with a solid electrode. The paper presents a review of experimental studies in recent years from industry and scientific research. Issues are outlined which justify the utility of machining hard metals by machining processes, with a focus on machining by milling processes. Starting from input parameters, such as technological parameters, blank material, cutting tool material and machining environment, their influence is analysed on output parameters, such as chip morphology, cutting tool wear and surface integrity.