Study on micro texturing of uncoated cemented carbide cutting tools for wear improvement and built-up edge stabilisation

•Tool wear shows differences according to rake face texture and texture orientation.•Dimple texture leads to a stabilising effect with respect to built-up edge formation.•A destabilised BUE formation lead to higher wear rates of cutting tool in dry cutting.•Built-up edge formation can be tailored by configurations of surface microtextures. During dry straight turning of plain carbon steel SAE 1045 with uncoated cemented carbide cutting tools in the cutting velocity regime 50m/min–150m/min wear is characterised by crater wear, flank wear and corner radius wear. In the low cutting velocity regime built-up edge (BUE) formation and built-up layers are visible. The BUE structures are instable in the cutting process and lead to a detoriation of the workpiece surface. Previous examinations revealed a local wear protecting effect of BUE with respect to the rake face, flank face and corner radius of the cutting tool (Kümmel et al., 2014). Laser surface texturing was applied to texture the rake face of the cutting tool with different textures (dimples and channels) to allow for changing the adhesion tendency of BUE on the cutting tool. By applying a dimple texture on the rake face the BUE could be best stabilised with respect to the untextured cemented carbide cutting tools. This is accompanied with a better wear behaviour compared to the untextured cutting tool with respect to corner radius wear. Contrary, channel textures destabilised BUE, while the wear of the cutting tool is increasing. The results clearly indicate that the adhesion of workpiece material on the rake face can be modified with respect to an untextured cemented carbide cutting tool in the dry metal cutting process by applying specific textures produced by laser texturing.