High-performance circular sawing of AISI 1045 steel with cermet and tungsten carbide inserts

This work investigated the influence of cutting speed and feed rate on cutting forces, surface roughness, and slot width circular sawing of AISI 1045 steel. The effects of tool material (cermet and tungsten carbide) and geometry (chip breaker flute and pre-cutting/post-cutting teeth) were also investigated. Thrust and radial forces generally tended to decrease as the cutting speed increased and tended to increase with the feed rate. The lowest values of thrust and radial forces were obtained using a tungsten carbide saw ground with precutting and post-cutting teeth. With regard to the quality of the machined wall, the lowest surface roughness was obtained by applying the highest cutting speed and lowest feed rate and employing a cermet brazed saw. Under this condition, roughness values comparable to face turning and parting off operations were obtained. The cermet brazed saw was responsible for producing the narrowest slot widths.