Residual stress and surface roughness when facing age hardened Inconel 718 with CBN and ceramic cutting tools

The demand for increasing productivity when machining heat resistant super alloys has resulted in the use of advanced cutting tools such as ceramics and cubic boron nitride (CBN). However, the effects of these tools on the surface integrity, especially the residual stresses created, in the high speed facing operation of Inconel 718 has not been dealt with. In this paper, the residual stresses and the surface roughness when facing age hardened Inconel 718 using CBN and mixed ceramic cutting tools at their respective optimum performance based on productivity has been investigated. The residual stress and surface finish generated during facing with CBN cutting tools have been investigated as a function of speed, depth of cut, coolant, tool geometry and nature of the tool coating. In addition, mixed ceramic cutting tools have been investigated for comparison. The results show that mixed ceramic cutting tools induce tensile residual stresses with a much higher magnitude than CBN cutting tools. The residual stresses and the surface roughness generated by CBN cutting tools are more sensitive to cutting speeds than depth of cut. The use of coolant results in either compressive residual stresses or lowers the magnitude of the tensile residual stresses, whereas dry cutting always resulted in tensile residual stresses. From this investigation, it is suggested that round CBN cutting tools should be used at slow cutting speeds (150 m/min) and small depths of cut (0.05 mm) and with the use of coolant to achieve compressive or minimal tensile residual stresses and good surface finish.