Title: The effects of reinforcements and heat treatment on the tool performance during machining of metal matrix composites

Authors: Metin Kök

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Program, Kahramanmaraş MYO, Kahramanmaraş Sütçü Imam University, Karacasu Campus, 46100 Kahramanmaraş, Turkey

Abstract: Machining of metal matrix composites (MMCs) has been considerably difficult due to the extremely abrasive nature of the reinforcements that causes rapid tool wear and high machining cost. In this study, the effect of T6 heat treatment, cutting parameters and weight fraction of reinforcement on the machinability of 7075Al/Al₂O₃ composites was investigated because of tool wear. Machining tests were performed on both as-cast and heat treated aluminium matrix composites reinforced with 10% and 25% weight fractions and 16 µm average size of Al₂O₃ particles by turning process using physical vapour deposition (PVD) coated carbide tool CP500 at different cutting conditions. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) was also employed to carry out the effects of these parameters on the cutting tool life. It was concluded that in both as-cast and heat treated composites the tool life decreased with increasing the cutting speed, feed rate and weight fraction of particles. However, heat treatment improved significantly the tool life. For the tool life, particle content was found to be the most effective factor followed by heat treatment and cutting speed respectively.

Keywords: aluminium matrix composites; tool wear; tool life; analysis of variance; ANOVA; heat treatment; machinability; reinforcement; heat treatment; tool performance; metal matrix composites; MMCs; cutting speed.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMMM.2013.051907

International Journal of Machining and Machinability of Materials, 2013 Vol.13 No.1, pp.34 - 51

Received: 20 May 2011
Accepted: 23 Nov 2011
Published online: 26 Dec 2013 *

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