Effects of magnetic assistance on improving tool wear resistance and cutting mechanisms during steel turning

Abstract This paper provides a novel magnetic assisted turning mechanism for machining steel alloy specimens by HSS tools. The presented setup reduces air gap on a closed magnetic circuit and applies the magnetic field on both tool and workpiece, simultaneously. The usage of closed magnetic field contributes to using the magnetic field advantages at lower magnetic intensity. Using the design of experiments method, full factorial technique, 3 3 ×2 tests were conducted to study the influence of effective parameters i.e., magnetic field, depth of cut, feed rate and spindle speed. The flank wear and the cutting force were measured to quantitatively investigate the effect of magnetic treatment on machining process. The results were investigated by the analysis of variance (ANOVA) method and the magnetic field was revealed as the most pivotal factor. The analysis of variance results, micrographs of tool wear and dynamometer's force diagrams proved the advantages of the proposed method. Through this technique, a maximum 94% reduction in flank wear and 66% improvement of cutting force were achieved.