Influence of spindle speed on tool wear in high-speed milling of Inconel 718 curved surface parts

High-speed milling, which provides an efficient approach for high-quality machining, is widely adopted for machining difficult-to-machine materials such as Inconel 718. For high-speed milling of Inconel 718 curved surface parts, the spindle speed which determines cutting speed directly is regarded as an important cutting parameter related to tool wear and machining efficiency. Meanwhile, because of the changing geometric features of curved surface, cutting force is changing all the time with the variation of geometric features, which influences not only tool wear but also machining quality significantly. In this study, the influence of spindle speed on coated tool wear in high-speed milling of Inconel 718 curved surface parts is studied through a series of experiments on considering tool life, cutting force, cutting force fluctuation, and machining efficiency. According to the experimental results, the appropriate spindle speed that can balance both the tool life and the machining efficiency is selected as 10,000 r/min for high-speed milling of Inconel 718 curved surface parts. In addition, the coated tool wear mechanism is investigated through scanning electron microscopy–energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy analysis. The results show that at the beginning wear stage and the stable wear stage, the coated tool wear is mainly caused by mechanical wear. Then, with the increasing cutting temperature due to the blunt tool edge, the tool wear becomes compound wear which contains more than one wear form so as to cause a severe tool wear.