Tribological Aspects of Interrupted Cutting with Ceramic Tool Materials.

Ceramics possess excellent hardness at high temperatures and so they can be used at high cutting speeds. Nevertheless, ceramic cutting tools represent only five percent of the total cutting tool market, justified in the need of reliable tools for automated cutting operations. The paper reports on the wear of ceramics in interrupted cutting. Topics considered are the measurement of tool temperatures and cutting forces as well as the investigation of tool breakage by finite element analysis.