Analysis of chip geometry and surface roughness at low speed turning in various commercial steels

Abstract

Rapid development of technology in manufacturing facilitates the industry to produce mass, high quality and affordable products. The challenge for small industries in manufacturing is to compete for product quality. Small manufacturing industries in controlling the quality of product deal with financial problems. Chip and surface roughness of low speed machining were tested to control the quality of material mechanical properties. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relation between chip characteristic and surface roughness with material hardness. This study used a conventional lathe with low rotation, cutting depth of 1 mm, dry turning process with variations of feed rate of 0.1 mm/rev, 0.2 mm/rev and 0.3 mm/rev, test material of AISI steel (1020, 1045, 1090, D2 and 4340) and tool material from carbides. Stereoscopic Optical Microscopy (SOM) was used to measure temporary shear angle while surface roughness tester was used to measure surface roughness. The results show that the shear angle of the chip and the surface roughness correlated with the hardness of the material.