Effect of cutting speed on cutting forces and wear mechanisms in high-speed face milling of Inconel 718 with Sialon ceramic tools

In this paper, a series of milling tests were carried out in order to identify the effects of cutting speed on cutting forces and tool wear when high-speed face milling Inconel 718 with Sialon ceramic tools. Both down-milling and up-milling operations were conducted. The cutting forces, tool wear morphologies, and the tool failure mechanisms in a wide range of cutting speeds (600–3,000 m/min) were discussed. Results showed that the resultant cutting forces firstly decrease and then increase with the increase of cutting speed. Under relatively lower cutting speeds (600 and 1,000 m/min), the dominant wear patterns is notching. Further increasing the speed to more than 1,400 m/min, the notching decreases a lot and flank wear becomes the dominant wear pattern. In general, at the same cutting speed, flaking on the rake face and notching on the flank face are more serious in down-milling operation than that in up-milling operation with the same metal removal volume. However, the surface roughness values for down-milling are lower than that for up-milling.