Simulation analysis of flank wear and tool life prediction for cutting superalloy under high-pressure cooling

Abstract The effect of flank wear on the cutting process of PCBN tool machining GH4169 superalloy under high-pressure cooling conditions was studied in this article. First of all, the cutting models of different flank wear under conventional cooling and coolant pressure of 50 bar were established by the Third Wave AdvantEdge. Secondly, under the same wear state, the author compared the simulation results of high-pressure cooling with that of conventional cooling. Simultaneously, the influence of flank wear width(VB) on cutting force, the temperature of the machining zone, and surface residual stress during coolant pressure of 50 bar was discussed. Finally, the PCBN tool life forecasting model was established by a method of the GA-BP neural network, and then the generalization ability of the forecasting model was evaluated by 6-fold cross-validation method. The results show that high-pressure cooling cutting effectively grows down the cutting force and temperature generated during the cutting process, and with the rise of flank wear width(VB), the cutting force, the temperature of the machining zone, and residual stress values show an increasing trend. The main reason is that the aggravated flank wear results in strong extrusion friction and plastic deformation in the contact area between the tool and the workpiece, which has different effects on the force-thermal characteristics.