TEMPERATURE REDUCTION OF CUTTING TOOLS BY THIN-FILMS

During the cutting process, cutting tools are exposed to complex mecha nical, thermal, dynamic and tribological loads. Especially in the case of dry machining the demands on cutting tools are very high. Dry mach ining becomes more and more interesting because of tighened up ecolaws and increased costs for the handling of coolants. Due to a renunciati on on coolants the cutting tools need to be modified to the process of dry machining. Thereby modern plasma and ion based surface technologi es can be used to deposit a thin film adopting the functions of coolan ts, e.g. cooling and lubricating. In this research project several coa ting types, e.g. titanium and chromium based coatings, where developed and characterized regarding their mechanical, tribological and therma l properties. For the research, four partners collaborated permuting a ll steps of surface and coatings design. Materials Science Institute ( WW), Aachen University of Technology, performed the development of PVD coatings and the thermophysical characterization by thermal wave anal ysis. Surface modifications of uncoated and coated tools by ion beam a ssisted deposition were carried out at Stiftung Institut fur Werkstoff technik (IWT), Bremen. To determine the cutting properties of coated t ools, practical tests were performed at Laboratory for Machine Tools a nd Production Engineering (WZL), Aachen University of Technology.