ABRASIVE AND DIFFUSIVE TOOL WEAR FEM SIMULATION

In this paper, an adopted abrasive-diffusive wear model is proposed and implemented into a 3D Finite Element code to study the tool wear phenomenon. In particular, the Authors found that FE procedure based only on diffusive mechanism shown some problems when the extension on crater area was investigated. This can be related to the absence of the wear abrasion term on the utilized model. Therefore, in this work, the Authors improved the previous utilized tool wear model introducing into the sub-routine the abrasive term on the basis of Usui's model. A series of 3D FEM simulations were conducted in order to estimate the tool wear development in turning operations. The adopted abrasive-diffusive wear model will give the possibility of correctly evaluating the tool wear of actual turning operations during both the initial transient phase, where the abrasive mechanism is dominant, and the steady-state phase, in which the diffusion is the main wear mechanism. The FEM results were compared with experimental data, obtained turning AISI 1045 steel with WIDIA P40 inserts, showing a satisfactory agreement.