A Comparative Study of Tool Wear for Niobium Carbide and Tungsten Carbide-Based Cutting Materials in Dry Cylindrical Turning

Abstract

Using niobium carbide (NbC) for cutting materials is a promising alternative to tungsten carbide (WC) based cutting materials for metal machining due to the inherent material properties of NbC. These include increased hot hardness and reduced chemical wear compared to WC. This study examines the application behaviour at varying cutting speeds of the cutting material composition NbC-12Ni4Mo4VC produced on a laboratory scale as well as an industrial reference cutting material based on the tungsten carbide WC-6Co. A series of measurements and analyses are conducted during the machining tests in order to evaluate the tool life, the growth of the flank wear, the cutting force and the achieved roughness of the machined surface. For NbC-12Ni4Mo4VC an increase in cutting speed correlates with an increase in tool life. As for higher cutting speeds a superior tool life of NbC-12Ni4Mo4VC is achieved compared to the industrial reference cutting tool material WC-6Co.

Keywords

• machining
• turning
• cutting tool
• cutting edge