“…However, compared with the ceramic tool materials, the traditional tool materials (high-speed steel and cemented carbide) showed a lower red hardness in machining these difficult-to-machine materials, which did not meet the need of high speed machining. Recently, ceramic tools—Al 2 O 3 -based, Si 3 N 4 -based, and TiB 2 -based ceramic tools—exhibited excellent cutting performance in machining the difficult-to-machine materials such as martensitic stainless steel, Inconel 718, ultra-high-strength steel 300 M, heat-treated AISI4140, hardened Cr12MoV mold steel, and Invar36 alloy [1,2,3,4,5,6]. The TiB 2 -based ceramic tool exhibited higher hardness compared with the other ceramic tools, which was attributed to the higher hardness of TiB 2 ceramic than that of the other ceramics.…”