Hot turning of a difficult-to-machine steel (sae xev-f) aided by infrared radiation

A possible way for increasing the cutting tool life can be achieved by heating the workpiece in order to diminish the shear stress of material and thus decrease the machining forces. In this study, quartz electrical resistances were set around the workpiece for heating it during the turning. In the tests, heat-resistant austenitic alloy steel was used, hardenable by precipitation, mainly used in combustion engine exhaustion valves, among other special applications for industry. The results showed that in the hot machining the cutting tool life can be increased by 340 % for the highest cutting speed tested and had a reduction of 205 % on workpiece surface roughness, accompanied by a force decrease in relation to conventional turning. In addition, the chips formed in hot turning exhibited a stronger tendency to continuous chip formation indicating less energy spent in material removal process. Microhardness tests performed in the workpieces subsurface layers at 5 μm depth revealed slightly higher values in the hot machining than in conventional, showing a tendency toward the formation of compressive residual stress into plastically deformed layer. The hot turning also showed better performance than machining using cutting fluid. Since it is possible to avoid the use of cutting fluid, this machining method can be considered better for the environment and for the human health.