The effect of grain size and hardness of Waspaloy on the wear of cemented carbide tools

Journal article, 2010

The effects of grain size and hardness of Waspaloy on the wear of cemented carbide tools were examined by measuring the actual progression of the tool wear in a specific transverse turning operation. Four different conditions of the material from the same batch were studied: fine-grain material in the solution-annealed condition and in the precipitation-hardened condition, as well as large-grain material for the same two conditions. While flank wear, as expected, correlated strongly with hardness, there was basically no effect on the flank wear by the grain size. Notch wear was significant for the large-grain-size material conditions only and was associated with inhomogeneous deformation and burr formation. The deformed layers in the machined surfaces were deeper for the large-grain-size material, but with no obvious effect of hardness.