Study of Flank Face Textured-Coated Carbide and Ceramic Tools and Their Effect on the Performance Parameters During Machining of Hardened H13 Steel

Cutting tools with plain cutting edges are sometimes unable to fulfill the machining quality requirements of certain materials with increased hardness. In such conditions, cutting tools with textures on their flank faces come as a viable method for improving the performance parameters during machining of such hard materials. Cutting insert textures on the flank surface can be implemented by micro-electric discharge machining, femto-second laser, focused ion beam machining, etc. Thus, the current research delves into the implementation of varied flank face textures on cutting tools of different materials and their performance evaluation based on parameters, viz., surface roughness of the workpiece, tool wear, and temperature generated during machining of such hard materials. Dot textures (DT) are implemented over the flank plane of coated carbide and ceramic inserts with the micro-electric discharge machining (μ-EDM) process. Turning experiments are performed with these textured inserts over hardened H13 steel to study the consequence of texturing on the performance parameters. Finally, a comparison of DT inserts with non-textured (NT) inserts of each material is carried out in terms of the parameters considered to gauge each inserts’ performance. The results showed that DT helps in improving the performance parameters for both the coated carbide and the ceramic tools.