Primary Research on Dry Milling of AISI 316L Stainless Steel Using Coated Monolithic Carbide Tools

Abstract

The paper concerns the problems of dry milling of the AISI 316L stainless steel. In the first part the challenges of dry milling process and problems of coated tool technology were discussed. The second part consists of dry machining experiment with application of carbide milling cutter coated with AlCrN-based coating. The goal of presented primary experiment was to analyze performance of coated carbide mill and the relationships between feed and cutting forces, surface roughness and tool life were determined. The study confirms that use of coated carbide tools in dry milling significantly improves both tool life and surface quality. The coated carbide tools, especially those with a carbide grain size of 0.41 μm, were found to be effective technological solution for achieving high surface quality in dry machining of AISI 316L steel.