EFFECTS OF CRYOGENIC TREATMENT ON THE CUTTING TOOL DURABILITY

High-speed steel (HSS) tools are the most commonly used tools in small and mediumscale industry. Cryogenic treatment can be used to enhance the tool life. Studies on cryogenically treated (CT) cutting tools show microstructural changes in the material that can influence the life of the tools significantly. This paper primarily reports performance of CT HSS tools as compared to untreated (UT) HSS tools. The results show that CT HSS tools exhibit better performance based on tool wear. The microstructure has been found more refined and uniformly distributed after cryogenic treatment of HSS tool. Taguchi L 25 orthogonal array was considered for conducting the experimentation and ANOVA used for data analysis. Three parameters such as cutting speed, feed rate and depth of cut at different levels were considered in this study. ANOVA results shows that the cutting speed is the most significant parameter followed by feed rate in both the cases (CT HSS and UT HSS tools). It has been observed that the performance of CT -HSS tools is better than that of UT HSS tools as per comparison of nose radius.