An Investigation on Turning Hardened Steel Using Different Tool Inserts

Turning of hard materials usually presents poor machinability. However, for high productivity, it is desirable to employ turning of hard materials rather than grinding. In this work, turning of hardened 16MnCrS5 steel with hardness of 43 HRC was explored to judge machining performance with plain and wide-groove-type chip-breaking TiC-coated carbide inserts under dry and wet environmental conditions, different cutting velocity, and feed. Tool wear tests were also done in dry and wet conditions. Satisfactory tool performance was observed under wet condition using TiC-coated plain and wide-groove carbide inserts even at 268 m/min cutting velocity, when dry machining could not be done effectively.