Wear development of cemented carbide inserts coated with mono and multilayer PVD films, considering their strength properties, adhesion and the cutting loads

In this work, we investigated the feasibility of increasing the cutting performance of coated tools through the application of multilayered PVD film structures. A monolayer TiAlN and a multilayer TiN/TiAlN coating of the same overall thickness deposited on K35 cemented carbide inserts, were investigated concerning their mechanical, adhesion properties and wear behavior in milling operations. The mechanical properties of both applied films were determined with the aid of nanoindentations and then the evaluation of the corresponding results by appropriate FEM supported algorithms. Impact tests were also conducted to determine film fatigue and adhesion data and the film failure development after the coating fracture initiation. Based on a FEM simulation and on experimental results, the stress field in the cutting wedge region was calculated and the wear initiation and propagation in the investigated mono and multilayer coating cases was explained.