Study on high-speed milling of steam turbine blade materials - Differences in cutting characteristics of an unforged ingot and a forged part of stainless steel

Stainless steel is an excellent material that has properties such as heat and corrosion resistance. Thus, stainless steel is used as a material in steam turbine blades. Steam turbine blades are mainly manufactured using two methods. One is the cutting of unforged metal ingots. Another is the cutting of forged parts. Small blades are made by cutting metal ingots. Large blades are made by cutting forged parts. The mechanical characteristics of a metal ingot and a forged part, such as hardness and toughness, are almost the same. There were not researches related to a relationship between "an unforged ingot and a forged part of stainless steel" and "the differences of the tool wear and the finished surface by high-speed milling". In this study, the high-speed milling of stainless steel was attempted for high-efficiency cutting of a steam turbine blade. The differences of the tool wear and the finished surface in the cuttings of an unforged ingot and a forged part were investigated. In the experiment, the cutting tool was a TiAlN coating radius solid end mill made of cemented carbide. The diameter of the end mill was 5 mm, and the corner radius was 0.2 mm. The cutting speed were 100 m/min-600 m/min. The workpieces used were a metal ingot and a forged part of stainless steel. In the results, it was found that the differences of the tool wear and the finished surface in the cuttings of an unforged ingot and a forged part. In the case of the unforged ingot, the flank wear became large with increasing cutting speed. On the other hand, in the case of forged part, the flank wear rapidly increased at a cutting speed of 100 m/min. In addition, the flank wear became smaller than the cutting speed 100 m/min at the cutting speed 200 m/min. Further, the flank wear became large with increasing cutting speed at cutting speeds higher than 200 m/min. That is, the flank wear was at a minimum at a cutting speed of 200 m/min. Although it could not be confirmed the characteristic of high speed milling at an unforged ingot, it has been identified at a forged part.