Tool steel material selection using PROMETHEE II method

In the recent century, tools for machining, forming, or other types of metalworking industries have consumed several tons of steel materials. Although the earliest tool steels were plain carbon steels, the modern tools contain different alloying elements, like tungsten, vanadium, molybdenum, manganese, and chromium, to provide the properties desired for their wide applications. The presence of a large number of such tool steel materials is a result of the fact that no single material combines the maximum wear resistance, toughness, machinability, safety in hardening, and non-deformability properties. Each tool steel material has its own mechanical and physical characteristics that help it to be suited for a particular application. Also for a specific application, more than one alternative tool steel material may exist, which makes it essential to select the most appropriate tool steel material with the desired properties to meet the manufacturer's requirements. This paper considers a list of ten tool steel materials whose performances are evaluated based on nine selection criteria. Preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluation (PROMETHEE II) is then applied to solve this tool steel material selection problem to obtain the full ranking of the considered material alternatives. Molybdenum-type high-speed steel (AISI M2) and tungsten base high-speed tool steel (AISI T1) are the two best choices. Alloy steel (AISI 4140) is the worst preferred tool steel material.