Abstract— This paper presents the performance of carbide coated cutting insert in turning FCD700 ductile cast iron in various dry machining conditions (without air, using air and chilled air). The turning parameters studied were, cutting speed of 120m/min., feed rate of 0.15mm/rev - 0.4mm/rev, and depth of cut of 0.6 mm-1.0 mm. The results show that the tool life was significantly controlled by the type of air coolant used, whereas the cutting force and surface roughness were not influenced by these coolants. Chilled air was found to be significantly improved the tool life by about 30% and 40% respectively when compared with normal air and without air conditions. The wear mechanism was predominantly controlled by the flank and crater wears on the flank and rake faces respectively. Due to the low cutting speed used in the experiment, both flank and crater wears were uniformly formed along the cutting edge and no catastrophic failure was observed under the scanning electron microscope (SEM). Index Terms— FCD700 ductile cast iron, carbide tool, wear mechanism, dry machining I. INTRODUCTION Metalworking fluids are a double-edged sword. They can be effective for lubricating and cooling the tool/workpiece interface and flushing chips, but maintenance, safety, fluid disposal and air quality can create pricey headaches. As a result, a growing number of U.S. manufacturers shift to dry or near-dry machining, seeking benefits ranging from coolant cost savings to improve tool life to higher value for recycled chips without having to buy fluid-extraction equipment [1]. Holemaking, however, is an exception. In traditional machining, the fluid that cools and lubricates the cut also helps evacuate chips from the hole, workpiece and fixture. When cutting dry, only the spindle‘s motion will work to evacuate chips. In manufacturing automotive components, grey cast iron continues to occupy a notable place in the area of materials. Cast iron is in direct competition with cast aluminium, although the mechanical properties of the former find their place in the market in making certain components such as Jaharah A. Ghani currently is a lecturer at the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43000 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia (corresponding Tel no.: +603 8921 6505 ;jaharah@eng.ukm.my) Mohd Nor Azmi Mohd Rodzi, Eghawail A.M., Kamal Othman, Ab Rahmad M.N. and Che Hassan Che Haron are with Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43000 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia, email: mnazmi77@yahoo.com. cylinder blocks, and to a lesser extent, cylinder heads [2]. Cast iron is a ferrous alloy containing a carbon content of 2.14% to 6.67%. It is classified roughly into two types depending on the morphology of graphite in the Fe matrix. One is gray cast iron (also called Ferrum Casting or FC) and the other is ductile cast iron (also called Ferrum Casting Ductile or FCD) [3]. Cutting temperature is an important factor in the machining operations as it strongly influences the cutting forces, tool life and the workpiece surface integrity. Higher cutting temperatures decrease the yield strength of the workpiece material, making it more ductile. This results decrease the cutting forces and hence improve the machinability of the material. However, increased workpiece surface temperatures cause problems like white layer formation. Most importantly, the tool life is affected by increasing cutting temperatures [4]. In this investigation, an industrial carbide coated cutting insert was used to perform turning on FCD700 high tensile ductile grey cast iron. This particular difficult-to-machine cast iron material was selected for this study because of its wide application in automotive industry. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of carbide tool in chilled air condition interms of tool life and wear mechanism. II. EXPERIMENTAL WORK The machining trials were carried out on a Colchester model Tornado 600 CNC turning machine in dry condition. The FCD700 (JIS) grade ductile cast iron with spherical graphite and ferrite was prepared in D100mm x 160mm round bar. The Brinell hardness and tensile strength are in the range of 241 HB and 845MPa respectively with elongation of 6%. Table 1 shows the composition of cast iron grade FCD700 used in the experiment. The AC700G grade coated Al 2 O 3 carbide cutting insert was used in these experiments. The technique of CVD coating applied for the insert is suitable for machining ductile gray cast iron material [5]. Table 2 shows the mechanical properties of the coated carbide insert AC700G. TABLE I COMPOSITION OF CAST IRON GRADE FCD700 [6] Element percentage (%) C Si Mn P S Cu Mo Mg 3.32 2.68 0.46 0.028 0.018 0.85 - 0.09 TABLE II GEOMETRY AND COATING OF COATED CARBIDE INSERT Nose radius, rε Clearance Angle, Rake angle, Main coating material 0.8 0 o -5 o Al2O3 + TiCN Performance of Coated Carbide Tool in Green Turning of FCD 700 Ductile Cast Iron Mohd Nor Azmi Mohd Rodzi, Jaharah A.G., Eghawail A.M., Kamal Othman, Ab Rahman M.N. and Che Hassan C.H. Proceedings of the International MultiConference of Engineers and Computer Scientists 2010 Vol III, IMECS 2010, March 17 - 19, 2010, Hong Kong ISBN: 978-988-18210-5-8 ISSN: 2078-0958 (Print); ISSN: 2078-0966 (Online) IMECS 2010