Beschichtungen lassen Werkzeuge kalt

Temperature of cutting tools by thin films During the cutting process, cutting tools are exposed to complex mechanical, thermal, dynamic and tribological loads. Especially in the case of dry machining the demands on cutting tools are very high. Dry machining becomes more and more interesting because of tightened up ecolaws and increased costs for the handling of coolants. Due to a renunciation on coolants the cutting tools need to be modified to the process of dry machining. Thereby modern plasma and ion based surface technologies can be used to deposit a thin film adopting the functions of coolants, e.g. cooling and lubricating. In this research project several coating types, e.g. titanium and chromium based coatings, where developed and characterized regarding their mechanical, tribological and thermal properties. For the research, four partners collaborated permuting all steps of surface and coatings design. Materials Science Institute (WW), Aachen University of Technology, performed the development of PVD coatings and the thermophysical characterization by thermal wave analysis. Surface modifications of uncoated and coated tools by ion beam assisted deposition were carried out at Stiftung Institut für Werkstofftechnik (IWT), Bremen. To determine the cutting properties of coated tools, practical tests were performed at Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL), Aachen University of Technology.