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    What factors influencing tool life and tool wear?

    Tool life is a troubling concern for many people. In the past, many people only judged tool life based on their own experience. However, there are many factors that affect tool life. Learning more about these internal and external factors will help determine the timing of tool replacement.

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    Tool life and wear

    During cutting, heat and friction are generated and the result of physical and chemical effects is called "tool wear", and the cutting time before the tool is damaged is called "tool life". The predetermined value of the tool wear level is mainly used as the judgment basis. In production, the life and working hours are often determined according to the processing conditions.

    Tool wear process

    In the early stage of wear, the surface of the tool is usually rough, after cutting for a while, you will see that the bump parts will be smooth, and some wear areas will start to appear. As the cutting time goes on, the level of wear also begins to increase, however, if the tool is within the effective period of the tool, it can still be used. With the rising cutting force and temperature, the cutting function will be lost quickly, and the tool will become blunt eventually.

    When reaching this stage, we should avoid causing defective products.


    【Read more】Does the breakage tool annoy you? Let’s see how to make tool wear digitize.

    Factors Affects Tool Life

    Internal factors

    • Cutting tool materials: There are many materials of cutting tools, which are the most important factors that affect the cutting performance of the tool, and have a great impact on the processing quality, processing efficiency, cost, and life. For example, tungsten steel is often used as a tool material that contains carbon, tungsten, cobalt, and other alloys to increase its properties. There are two major factors affecting its properties, first, the higher the cobalt contents the lower hardness, and the better toughness. The second is the particle size of the powder. The smaller the particle size is, the better the wear resistance it has.

     Read more  >> How to choose the right tools: cutting tools material and performance

    • Cutting tool coatings: There is usually a membrane on the tool surface which is formed in a chemical or physical way so that the tool can have good comprehensive cutting performance and also meet the processing conditions. The cutting tools with the coatings can greatly increase tool life, and improve processing efficiency and precision, which means the quality of processed workpieces is increased as well. At present, we can choose suitable coating technologies according to different workpieces.

     Read more >> Do knives need to be coated? How to choose from so many types of coatings?

    • Cutting tool size: According to the shape and size of the workpiece, the types and specifications of the cutting tools required are also different. It is necessary to select a suitable tool for cutting, otherwise, it will be prone to the problems of vibration issues, interference during the cutting process, edge cracking, abrasion, or entanglement of chips.

    External factors

    • Tool clamping force: It is very simple to lock the tool tightened, but each master has different techniques, angles, and strengths, also needs to match the different specifications and rigidity of the machine tool, which will affect the tool's life and stability while cutting. Therefore, it is necessary to help improve this situation with a torque screwdriver, spanner, or smart cutting.

    Read more >> How to use data to get the best tool clamping force?

    • Cutting parameters: Cutting parameters include speed, feed rate, and depth of cut. These parameters have a great impact on tool life, especially cutting speed, therefore, manufacturers usually provide parameters for customers' reference.


    • Workpiece material: The workpiece material can be divided into many kinds, such as copper, aluminum, low carbon steel, alloy steel or stainless steel, etc. Each material has different characteristics, which will also affect the cutting life.

    Read more >> Do you know that there are six ISO standards for metal workpiece materials? What are the characteristics of each?


    • Tool holder wears: The tool holder wear is related to the tool life which is also affected by the habits of each operator. The wear of the tool holder will reduce the stability during the cutting process. Therefore, it is recommended to check the tool holder before replacing the tool.


    • Condition of machine equipment: There may be vibrations during the cutting process. If the stability of the machine is not good, it will easily affect the tool life, and cause excessive tolerance of the workpiece and rough surface. Therefore, it is necessary to do good maintenance of the machine on weekdays in order to reduce the influence of this factor.


    • Selection of cutting fluid: Cutting fluid plays an important role in cutting and can achieve the goals of rust prevention, cooling, lubrication, etc. It is necessary to select the correct cutting fluid according to different cutting characteristics and replace it regularly to maintain a good production process.

    Read more >> Did you select the correct cutting fluid?

    Tool life prediction has always been an important topic as the length of life will affect the final quality of the workpiece, and it will also increase a lot of costs during the process. If you can understand the internal and external factors that affect tool life and do regular testing and tracking, it is worth trying. Of course, you can also choose to use the assistance of smart cutting to make predictions of tool life more clearly and quickly in a simple way and optimize the entire process to maximize benefits and reduce unnecessary costs.

    【Solution】Using smart cutting to prolong tool life and successfully reduce the cost of NTD270,000

    Main photo by Machsync

    References: Baojetool/ Baojetool 2/ Bewise

    This article was written by Machsync, please do not distribute, give, or sell for commercial use or in any way. Any use such as reprinting, excerpting, copying, and creating images is prohibited without permission.

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