5 th International & 26 th All India Manufacturing Technology, Design and Research Conference (AIMTDR 2014) December 12 th –14 th , 2014, IIT Guwahati, Assam, India 51-1 Experimental Comparative Study of Conventional andMicro- Textured Tools during Machining of AISI 1040 Alloy Steel Rokkham Pavan Kumar Reddy 1 , Kishor Kumar Gajrani 2 , M. Ravi Sankar 3* 1, 2, 3* Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, 781039, 1 rokkham@iitg.ernet.in, 2 g.kishor@iitg.ernet.in, 3* evmrs@iitg.ernet.in Abstract In the field of dry machining, recent researchindicates that surface texture has potential to influence tribological conditions. However, very little attention has been given to controlled surface texturing of cutting tools. An experimental study of the performance of the micro-texture high speed steel (HSS) grade M2 cutting tool in machining of AISI 1040 steel samples is carried out. Surface textures were made using Rockwell hardness tester on rake face of the HSS M2 tool. Structural analyses are done on cutting tool using ANSYS workbench to evaluate the effect of micro-texture on the stresses and strains generationat cutting edge of the cutting tool in cutting operations. It is found that the effect of micro-texture on stress generation is very small which can be neglected. Dry cutting tests were carried out on AISI 1040 steel sample using lathe machine with micro-textured tools and conventional cutting tool for a varying range of feed and cutting speed. The machining performance was analyzed in terms of feed force, cutting force and coefficient of friction. The results demonstrate that the surface texture on the rake face of cutting tools significantly reduces cutting forces and coefficient of friction when compared with that of the conventional tool. Keywords: Surface texture, Cutting tools, Dry cutting 1. Introduction Severe friction exists as the chip flows over the rake face and the tool flank of the cutting tool in dry machining. Relative motion between the tool and chip surfaces produces frictional heating to the cutting tool, resulting in high temperature at the tool–chip interface. As a result, crater and flank wear develops quickly on the tool rake face and flank face under the high pressure, high temperature and sliding speed at the interface. According to Shaw (1984), wear processes involve both chemical and mechanical interaction between contacting surfaces and are very complex in nature, which are mostly governed by the cutting speeds, the cutting forces and the chemical composition of workpiece and tool materials. As expressed by Kramer (1991): “Metal machining have a unique tribological situation in which clean surfaces are cleaved from the interior of the workpiece and maintained in a condition of nearly 100% real area of contact with the tool surface during sliding.”Therefore, decreasing the contact area between the tool-workpiece interface and tool-chip interface is of particular interest in mechanical micromachining. The friction and adhesion between tool and chip is tend to be higher in dry cutting operation, which causes high wear rates, high temperature generation, which ultimately results in shorter tool life. This motivates researchers like Deng et al. (2009) and Renevier and Hamphire (2001) to develop new cutting tool with self-lubricating properties to reduce cutting temperature by reducing coefficient of friction between contact surfaces. Few self-lubricationapproaches have been attempted, out of those methods; Deng et al. (2006) used a ceramic tool with burnishing of CaF 2 solid lubricants over rake face of cutting tools. By experimentation, they observed that the friction coefficient between the tool- chip interfacesis decreased in dry cutting with ceramic tool burnished with CaF 2 solid lubricant as compared with that of tool without solid lubricants. Liu et al. (1999) have found that coating of MoS 2 or MoS 2 /Ti over tool surfaces can enhance the tribological properties. Enomoto and Sugihara (2010) attempted surface texturing of tool to improve tribological properties of lubricated surface, and the presence of artificially created micro-dimples on frictional surface results in substantial reduction in friction and wear as compared with non-textured surfaces.Surface texturing as a means for enhancing tribological properties of mechanical components has received a great deal of attention and has already been put to practical use in some fieldssuch as a piston/cylinder system by Etsion (2004).Various different processes are used for texturing from conventional machining to focused energy-beam processes, due to which improvement is attributed to several physical mechanism such as local supply of lubricant increases by creation of lubricant reservoir, wear debris entrapment and also increase of load carrying capacity by a hydrodynamic effect as mentioned by Basnyat (2008). For example, Jayal et al. (2008) employed uncoated cemented tungsten carbide tools with rake surfaces ground to different tolerance levels during production and observed that several surface texture parameters for the tool’s rake