Wear Characteristics of Multilayer-Coated Cutting Tools in Milling Wood and Wood-Based Composites

This article presents the characteristic of wear on the clearance face of newly multilayer-coated K10 cutting tools when cutting mersawa wood, fiberboard, particleboard, and glass reinforced concrete (GRC). The K10 cutting tools were coated with monolayer titanium aluminum nitride (TiAlN), multilayer TiAlN/titanium silicon nitride (TiSiN), and TiAlN/titanium boron oxide nitride (TiBON). Cutting tests were performed on computer numeric control router at a high cutting speed of 17 m/s and a feed rate of 0.2 mm/rev to investigate the wear characteristics on the clearance face of these coated tools. Experimental results show that the coated tools experienced a smaller amount of clearance wear than the uncoated tool in cutting the mersawa wood, fiberboard, particleboard, and GRC. The GRC compared to the other work materials caused higher amount of clearance wear for both the uncoated and coated cutting tools. High content of silica and density were the reason for this phenomenon. The best coating among other coated cutting tools in this study was multilayer TiAlN/TiBON. The high hardness, low coefficient of friction, high resistance to oxidation, and high resistance to delamination wear of the multilayer-coated TiAlN/TiBON tool indicate a very promising applicability of this coating for high-speed cutting of abrasive woods and wood-based materials.