Effect of Strain Hardening on Burr Control in Drilling of Austenitic Stainless Steel

Austenitic stainless steel has been widely used in various industries, such as aerospace, medical, and hydrogen energy, due to its high strength over a wide range of temperatures, corrosion resistance, and biocompatibility. However, stainless steel is a difficult-to-cut metal because its ductility and low thermal conductivity induce a strain hardening with significant plastic deformation at high temperatures. Burr formed at the back side of a plate is a critical issue which deteriorates the surface quality, especially in drilling. Burr removal operation, therefore, should be done in the machine shop. This study discusses the effect of strain hardening of austenitic stainless steel, SUS 316L, on burr formation. Hardness and cutting tests were conducted to compare the strain hardening effect for three types of workpieces: as-received, pre-machined, and tensile treated specimens. In the employed specimens, the tensile treated specimen is harder than the as-received specimen. Those specimens have uniform hardness in the depth direction from surfaces. Pre-machined specimen, in which the back side of the plate was finished by face milling, has a distribution of hardness in the depth direction from a surface. The highest hardness appears in the subsurface of the pre-machined specimen. The cutting forces in the steady processes, in which the entire edges remove material, were nearly the same as the tested specimens each other. However, remarkable differences were confirmed in the chip thickness and burr formation. The higher strain hardening of the tensile treated specimen is effective to suppress burr formation. The cutting characteristics are then identified to associate burr control with the shear plane model of orthogonal cutting using an energy-based force model. The shear stresses, shear angles, and friction angles of the tensile treated and as-received specimens are compared to discuss the effect of strain hardening on reduction of burr formation.