STUDY OF THE PERFORMANCE OF PVD AND PCVD COATED CERMETS FOR DIFFERENTCUTTING APPLICATIONS

The performance of PVD and PCVD coated cermets has been investigated f or turning and milling applications. Two different cermet materials we re used to have both harder and tougher substrates. The coatings used for the cutting tests were: TiN (PVD), (Ti,Al)N (PVD), TiN (PCVD) and a multilayer TiN/A(2)O(3)/TiN (PCVD). The coated cermets have been com pared with uncoated cermets and, for some applications, with hardmetal s. A great variety of workpiece material has been used to evaluate the performance of the cermets. After the cutting tests wear analysis has been performed with electron microscope. For the cermet materials use d the cutting conditions were very important to achieve an improvement with cermet inserts compared to hardmetals. Furthermore a clear impro vement could be seen with coated cermets compared to uncoated cermets. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.