Stainless grade faces off with tool steel performance

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AMPCO METAL Deutschland GbmH

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INDUSTEEL Creusot

Delivery hardness

Industeel said its stainless grade is delivered in pre-hardened and tempered condition (ready-to-use), in the hardness range of 290/330 Brinell (tensile strength: ~950 – 1050 MPa). To ensure a regular machining performance, it is necessary to achieve a uniform hardness throughout the whole plate. From one location on a tested plate to another, the maximum deviation is not more than 20 HB, which will be favourable to sensitive machining operations like gun drilling or tapping, the company noted

High-feed milling results

As machinability is a key end user value for mould base steels, it is necessary to evaluate the performance of SP Stainless against 1.2085. Besides the workpiece material, milling performance is closely linked to cutting conditions (cutting tools and parameters used) and the milling test results are valid under the following specified testing conditions:

• High-feed milling cutter AJX052 from Mitsubishi

• Coated insert JDMW 120420 ZDSR-FT-FH7020.

To evaluate the milling performance of both steels studied, the evolution of tool flank wear against test duration was plotted. Three different wear regions were observed for both steels: a primary-wear region with a high-wear rate followed by a steady-state region with tool wear increasing on a regular basis, and finally an accelerated-wear region that ends with catastrophic failure.

The criteria for assessing cutting tool life were either the test duration at the beginning of the accelerated wear region, or the test duration corresponding to a flank wear equal to 0.3mm.

Industeel said that depending on the wear criterion considered, when machining its stainless grade, tools lasted 59% to 72% longer versus when used to machine the 1.2085 grade. These results show that for given milling conditions, Superplast Stainless provides longer tool life (and higher productivity) than the standard steel, the company said.

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