Dry turning of hard 2379 steel using a ZTA5Ce0.7La ceramic cutting insert: A study

Abstract

The aim of this work is to evaluate the dry turning ability of zirconia toughened alumina reinforced with 5 wt.% CeO2 and 0.7 wt.% La2O3 (ZTA5Ce0.7La) ceramics as cutting insert in turning of 2379 steel with hardness of 43 HRC. Triangular cutting inserts were fabricated using this material composition via powder metallurgy route. Results of the cutting insert were measured based on the average width of flank wear and surface finish of machined workpiece. Results show that the tool was able to machine tool steel and good surface finishes were obtained for most of the cutting speeds used in the machining test, except for the highest cutting speed of 237.5 m/min. The longest life (12.5 minutes) of the cutting inserts according to the measured flank wear for the turning at cutting speed of 87.1 m/min with considerably good surface finish (Ra of 0.778 μm). Therefore, this ZTA5CeO0.7La cutting inserts is possible to be used as a successful dry turning process of 2379 steel.