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Investigation of Chip Formation Characteristics

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Investigation of Chip Formation Characteristics in Orthogonal Cutting of

Graphite

L. Zhou ab; C. Y. Wang b; Z. Qin b

a
Faculty of Electromechanical Engineering, Guangdong Polytechnic Normal University, Guangzhou,
China b Faculty of Electromechanical Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou,
China
Online publication date: 16 December 2009

To cite this Article Zhou, L., Wang, C. Y. and Qin, Z.(2009) 'Investigation of Chip Formation Characteristics in Orthogonal

Cutting of Graphite', Materials and Manufacturing Processes, 24: 12, 1365 1372
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Materials and Manufacturing Processes, 24: 13651372, 2009

Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1042-6914 print/1532-2475 online
DOI: 10.1080/10426910902997399

Investigation of Chip Formation Characteristics

in Orthogonal Cutting of Graphite
L. Zhou1
2 , C. Y. Wang2 , and Z. Qin2
1

Faculty of Electromechanical Engineering, Guangdong Polytechnic Normal University, Guangzhou, China

2
Faculty of Electromechanical Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China

Downloaded By: [Wang, Chengyong] At: 02:44 21 December 2009

Graphite becomes the prevailing electrode material in electron discharge machining (EDM) currently. This article aims to reveal the chip
formation characteristics of graphite by orthogonal cutting experiments. The results showed that semicontinuous chip, crushed particle chip, and
fractured block chip formation were identied as three major types of graphite chip formation. The transitions of chip formations were highly
dependent on the depth of cut. The chips produced in different type of chip formation exhibited different surface fractography. Three types of
chip size distribution corresponded well to three types of chip formation. The surface roughness and cutting force increased prominently with the
depth of cut increasing. The cutting force response in each type of chip formation can be identied by the uctuation extent and waveform of
cutting force.
Keywords Chip formation; Graphite; Orthogonal cutting.

1. Introduction
In recent years, istropic graphite has been used widely in
electron discharge machining (EDM) applications of die and
mould to manufacture products in the elds of automobile,
home appliances, communications, and electronic industry.
It has the advantage of the ne-grained structure and higher
mechanical strength over common molded graphite and
sintered graphite. Compared with copper, istropic graphite
has better machinability and less thermal deformation in
mechanical machining, and less electrode wear, higher
removal rate, and heat resistance in EDM. Due to its lower
density, graphite can be stuck to each other by use of special
adhesive to produce large size electrodes with complicated
shapes. Therefore, istropic graphite becomes the prevailing
electrode material over copper in EDM, especially for
manufacturing complicated mould cavities with narrow and
deep slots or microholes.
Graphite is a special brittle material with inconsistent
polycrystal microstructure. It has many interior microdefects such as micropores and microcracks. So its actual
mechanical strength is much lower than theoretical strength.
These defects can result in unacceptable cracking of graphite
electrodes during machining. In the cutting process of
graphite, chips are not like the strip ones produced by plastic
ow in metal cutting. Graphite chips are mainly produced
by cutting impact, crush, and aking off actions of cutters
in the form of brittle fractured chips or dust. Therefore,
graphite machining has its special characteristics totally
different from those of metal cutting [1, 2].

Several previous researches have reported the cutting

characteristics of some graphite materials. Knig [3] found
that in high speed milling of graphite, crushed fractures
occurred to the graphite material at the tool tips with ne
chips and microcraters; the cracks extended downwards
ahead of the tool tip and grew to the workpiece surface
resulting in fracture chips formation. Masuda et al. [4]
observed that in turning process of sintered graphite, a crack
was produced and extended along the cutting direction, and
then some workpiece materials were crashed into chips as
the tool pushing forward. Sato and Nakayama [5] found that
in turning sintered graphite, the graphite particles smaller
than 250 m accounted for the majority of total weight,
and the proportion of big particles would increase with
feed rate increasing. The authors [6, 7] reported that in
high speed milling of isotropic graphite, many fractured
craters of various depths were caused on the machined
surface; the chip shapes appeared irregularly, and chips like
block, strip, sphere, and ake were observed; cutting tools
suffered severe wear due to the highly abrasive nature of
the graphite. However, it is necessary to do further in-depth
study on the characteristics of graphite chip formation and
the machined surface and cutting forces related so as to get
a comprehensive understanding of graphite chip formation.
In this article, orthogonal cutting experiments were
conducted and observed in situ to study the characteristics of
graphite chip formation. The micrographs of graphite chips
were examined. The chip size distributions were analyzed.
The variations of machined surfaces and cutting forces with
chip formation transitions were investigated.

Received October 2, 2008; Accepted December 30, 2008

Address correspondence to C. Y. Wang, Faculty of Electromechanical
Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China;
E-mail: cywang@gdut.edu.cn

2. Experimental method and procedure

Experimental setup is shown in Fig. 1. Orthogonal cutting
experiments were performed on a CNC milling center
(J1VMC40M, China). Inserts (TaeguTec SPGN120404)

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Figure 1.Schematic of orthogonal cutting experiments.

were xed by a specially designed tool holder clamped onto

the spindle as cutters (Fig. 1). This holder is composed of
a shank, a seat, and a small platen. The cutter moved with
the spindle to feed along the X-direction of machine.
The workpiece material is ne-grained graphite of grade
ISO-63 (Toyo Tanso Inc.) with average grain size of 5 m,
density of 1.82 g/cm3 , shore hardness of 80, and exural
strength of 79 MPa. The typical fractographies of graphite
produced by standard shear and tensile tests are shown in
Figs. 1(a) and (b). Graphite materials were pre-machined
to slices of 1 mm in thickness, 50 mm in width, and 20 mm
in height. Graphite slice was clamped by a vice on a
piezoelectric dynamometer mounted on the working table.
Cutting speed was set to a slow constant velocity v of
10 mm/min to enable easy visualization of cutting process.
Depths of cut ap were set to 0.020.24 mm at interval of
0.02 mm so as to study the chip formation changes under
various depths of cut.
In situ observations of the orthogonal cutting processes
were conducted by use of a stereo microscope (Taike
XT53022-CTV, China) with CCD camera (Panasonic WVCP460/CH). The recorded videos of chip formation were
post-processed by replaying at playing speed of 25 fpm
with media player software. Typical instantaneous frames
of chip formation were captured to analyze the dynamic
charateristics of graphite chip formation. Horizontal cutting
forces FH and vertical cutting forces FV were measured and
recorded using a dynamometer (YDM-III99).
The graphite chips were collected and observed by SEM
(JSM-6380). Magnied digital images of the collected
graphite chips were processed to measure the size and
number of chips so as to evaluate the size distribution of
graphite chips. The chip size was presented as the equivalent
diameter of a circle which can just cover the chip. The
machined surfaces of graphite were observed by Scanning
Electronic Microscope (SEM JSM-6380) and measured by
Laser Scanning Confocal Microscope (Olympus LSCM
FV1000S).

3. Results and discussions

3.1. Chip Formation
According to the recorded videos of cutting process and
chip morphology observations under various depths of cut,

Figure 2.Semicontinuous chip formation: ap = 002 mm, o = 5
,

v = 10 mm/min.

CHIP FORMATION OF GRAPHITE

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Figure 3.Micrograph of a semicontinuous rag chip: ap = 002 mm,

o = 5
, v = 10 mm/min.

graphite chip formation can be identied and classied into

three major types: semicontinuous chip, crushed particle
chip, and fractured block chip formation.
3.1.1. Semicontinuous Chip Formation. Semicontinuous
chip is a special kind of chip, which usually occurs at
shallow depths of cut. As shown in Fig. 2, at small
depth of cut of 0.02 mm, a semicontinuous chip like a
strip was generated ahead of the tool rake face, owing
out smoothly like chips in metal cutting. From Fig. 3,

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it can be noticed that semicontinuous chip is full of aws
and composed of some small fragments loosely attaching
together. It looks very coarse and incompact, and seems
easy to smash by slight exterior load. The cutter served as a
scrape ploughing graphite along the workpiece surface. As
the cutter advanced, the strip chip gradually curled into a
big agglomerate, as illustrated in Fig. 2(c).
Figure 4 shows the typical micrographs of semicontinuous chips from different view directions. The
camber-like lateral view of chip [Fig. 4(a)] indicates its
exibility and continuity in microscale and thinner thickness
than the depth of cut. As can be seen from Fig. 4(b),
the chip surface viewed in direction A bears interlayer
delamination fractography similar to the shear fractography
in Fig. 1(b). In Figs. 4(c) and (d), it can also be observed
that the chip surfaces are rather smooth with parallel traces
of shear fracture of graphite. Because graphite is prone
to delaminate between interlayers, and its failure under
compression is basically in shear [8], it can be concluded
that semicontinuous chips are commonly peeled off by
compression-induced shear.
3.1.2. Crushed Particle Chip Formation. Crushed
particle chip formation is a type of discontinuous chip
formation under moderate depths of cut. Figures 5(a) and (b)
shows that the graphite material ahead of the cutter was
crushed into small particles, which were composed of some
irregularly shaped particles and ne dusts. Crushed particle
chips are prone to accumulate gradually in front of the cutter
as shown in Fig. 5(c).

Figure 4.Micrographs of the small fragments of semicontinuous chips: ap = 002 mm, o = 5
, v = 10 mm/min. (a) Lateral view; (b) View in direction A
indicated in Fig. 4(a); (c) View in direction B indicated in Fig. 4(a); and (d) Englargement of region C in Fig. 4(c).

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L. ZHOU ET AL.

Figure 6.Micrographs of crushed particle chips with residual microcracks:

ap = 006 mm, o = 5
, v = 10 mm/min.

Figure 5.Crushed particle chip formation: ap = 006 mm, o = 5
,

v = 10 mm/min.

The micrographs of crushed particle chips shown in

Figs. 6(a) and (b) reveal that some parts of chip surfaces
are of fracture features similar to the shear fractography
in Fig. 1(b), while other parts appear the honeycombed
intergranular fracture induced by tensile stress as shown in
Fig. 1(a). There are still several microcracks visible on the
chip surfaces. All these suggest that the particle chips are
fragmented mainly by the mutual action of compressioninduced shear fracture and tensile fracture.
3.1.3. Fractured Block Chip Formation. Fractured block
chip formation is another typical discontinuous chip
formation, which is different from the above crushed
particle chip formation in the size and initiation of the chips.
At 0.1 s of the cutting process, the graphite material ahead
of the tool was crushed into small particles (indicated by
arrow A in Fig. 7(a)) when the tool penetrated into the
workpiece. At 0.2 s, the material in a small area ahead
of the tool tip were crushed and compacted with further
displacement of cutter. The stress led in the rest loaded
material was built up, and a crushed zone (indicated by
arrow B in Fig. 7(b)) came into being with a big initial crack
(indicated by arrow C in Fig. 7(b)) ahead of it. As the tool
moved forward, the crushed zone was squashed as shown by
arrow B in Fig. 7(c) at 0.3 s. Then some ne powder chips

might be dislodged from the crushed zone, while some others

might still accumulate between the cutter and the loaded
workpiece material with the shape like a wedge as shown by
arrow B in Figs. 7(c) and (d) at 0.30.4 s. At the same time,
the crack was opened by the lift effect of the crushed zone
and propagated upwards to the free surface directly or after
traveling downwards into the material to a certain depth as
indicated by arrow D in Figs. 7(c) and (d). Then a fracture
block chip (indicated by arrow E in Fig. 7(e) at 0.5 s) was
produced. After the fractured block chip departed from the
tool rake face at 0.6 s, there were still some chips remained
on the tool tip as shown by arrow B in Fig. 5(e), which were
the residual fragments of the crushed zone.
The fractured block chip was always rectangle-like in
shape as shown in Fig. 7, and the chip thickness was often
greater than the depth of cut because of the propagation of
the initial crack below the cutting plane. Figure 8 shows
the micrographs of fractured block chips. As can be seen,
there are two different types of fractured surfaces: one type
is represented by regions A1 and A2 in Fig. 8 with the
tensile fractography, and another is exhibited by the areas
with shear fractography indicated by regions B1 and B2
in Fig. 8.
Based on the above observations and discussions of
fractured block chip formation of graphite, it is obvious that
it is similar to the chip formation of other typical brittle
materials [9]. In rock cutting the rock fails mainly by tensile
stress, and the crushed zone is formed due to the shears
over the slip lines [10]. So it can be considered that in

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CHIP FORMATION OF GRAPHITE

1369

Figure 7.Fractured block chip formation: ap = 024 mm, o = 5
, v = 10 mm/min. (A = small particles, B = crushed zone, C = initial crack, D = crack
propagation, and E = fractured chip.)

fractured block chip formation, the major crack is formed

and propagated under a tensile stress as a result of the
mutual action of compression and bending by the cutter,
and the regions B1 and B2 are shaped after the crushed
zone was squashed by compression-induced shear.

3.2. Graphite Chip Size Distribution

From the SEM micrographs shown in Fig. 9, with the
depth of cut increasing from 0.02 mm to 0.14 mm, the chip
geometry increased signicantly in size from about 10 m
to 630 m. The length-based size probabilities of graphite

Figure 8.Micrographs of fractured block chips: ap = 014 mm, o = 5
, v = 10 mm/min. (a) and (b) Typical fractured block chips; (c) Enlargement of region
A2 in Fig. 8(b); and (d) Enlargement of region B1 in Fig. 8(a).

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L. ZHOU ET AL.

Figure 9.Transformation of graphite chip geometry with depths of cut increasing: o = 5
, v = 10 mm/min. (a) ap = 002 mm; (b) ap = 004 mm;
(c) ap = 006 mm; (d) ap = 008 mm; (e) ap = 010 mm; and (f) ap = 014 mm.

chips at various depths of cut are shown in Fig. 10. The size
intervals were set between the values of 20, 40, 60, 80, 100,
and 200 m. It is obvious that the proportions of mean size
chips and big size chips increased markedly with the depth
of cut increasing, and the chips accounting for the biggest
proportion also shifted in a trend from small to big size.
From Fig. 10, three principal types of chip size distribution
can be identied as following. (i) When the depth of cut
is 0.02 mm, the small chips of size 2040 m were in the
majority, and little chip was observed above 100 m in size.
(ii) When the depth of cut increased to 0.06 mm, the biggest
share still belonged to those small chips of size 2040 m,
however some bigger chips in size of 100200 m could
also be found in the overall collected chips, suggesting that
the chips were produced in a mixed manner of some small
size chips and a few major chips. (iii) When the depth of
cut increased to 0.08 mm, the biggest share switched to the
big chips of size 6080 m, and little portion of chips were
in size less than 40 m, which means that the chips were
mainly composed of major chips.
These alterations of chip size distributions support the
in situ observations of chip morphologies under various

depths of cut. Different chip size distribution is in close

association with different failure mode of graphite. Chip
size distributions i, ii, and iii correspond well to the
semicontinuous chip, crushed particle chip, and fractured
block chip formation, respectively.
3.3. Morphology and Surface Roughness
of the Machined Surface
The SEM micrographs of machined surfaces of graphite
under various depths of cut [Figs. 11(a)(d)] show that
the machined surfaces at most depths of cut are composed
of some smaller or bigger fracture craters. The 3D prole
micrographs and roughness Ra of the machined surfaces
taken by LSCM are shown in Figs. 11(e)(h). The fracture
craters observed by SEM are represented by various grey
areas. The darker the grey areas appear, the deeper the
craters, and the coarser the surfaces are. In such a way, the
machined surfaces of graphite are visualized very clearly. It
is apparent that the machined surface appears rather smooth
with little visible craters at the depth of cut of 0.02 mm.
With the depth of cut increasing, fracture craters begin to
form and become bigger and deeper. At the depth of cut

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CHIP FORMATION OF GRAPHITE

Figure 10.Chip size distribution under various depths of cut: o = 5
,

v = 10 mm/min.

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Figure 12.Variations of cutting forces with depths of cut.

of 0.14 mm, there is a deep crater on the machined surface

as shown in Figs. 11(d) and (h), which was caused by
propagation of the initial crack downward into the material
below the depth of cut. It can also be found in Fig. 11 that
the surface roughness Ra of the machined surface increased
obviously with the depth of cut increasing. Therefore,
good surface nish can be achieved in semicontinuous
chip formation under shallow depths of cut; while rapid
material removal rate can be achieved in discontinuous chip
formation by increasing the depth of cut.
3.4. Cutting Forces
The variations of cutting forces with depth of cut
(Fig. 12) shows that the maximum forces FHmax and
FV max increased with the increase of depths of cut and
the mean forces FH 0 and FV 0 changed little. The cutting
forces uctuated apparently in graphite cutting (Fig. 13).
Associated with the videos of chip formation processes
recorded simultaneously with cutting forces measurement,

it is obvious that the variations of cutting forces were in

deep association with the changes of chip morphologies.
Different cutting response can be identied by the certain
waveforms of force curves. When cutting under small
depths of cut, most graphite materials were compressed
and sheared into semicontinuous chips with little material
cracking, so the cutting force uctuated little [Fig. 13(a)].
The irregular waves of cutting force like zigzags [Fig. 13(b)]
are related to the formation of crushed particle chips at
moderate depths of cut. Cutting force uctuated drastically
when fractured chips were produced [Fig. 13(c)]: the great
oscillation of cutting force was induced by brittle fracture
chipping, and those small wave crests ahead of the highest
peak forces corresponded to the small fragments before the
big fracture chip formed. During the whole cutting process,
the cutter was in intermittent contact with the graphite
material, so the cyclic cutting impact on the tool tip was
increased undoubtedly. Therefore, the smaller the depths of

Figure 11.SEM and 3D prole micrographs of machined surfaces: o = 5
, v = 10 mm/min.

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L. ZHOU ET AL.

Figure 13.Cutting force curves in various types of chip formation: (a) in semicontinuous chip formation; (b) in crushed particle chip formation; and (c) in
fractured block chip formation.

cut, the less the cutting forces uctuate, and the more stable
the cutting process. Cutting stability can be improved by
decreasing the depths of cut to lessen the cutting force and
its uctuation amplitude.
4. Conclusions
(1) Three primary types of chip formation were observed in
graphite cutting. Semicontinuous chips were produced
by compression-induced shear at shallow depth of cut.
With the depth of cut increasing, the chip formation
mode transited smoothly to crushed particle chip
formation, and nally changed to fractured block chip
formation.
(2) The machined surfaces are mainly composed of some
smaller or bigger fracture craters. The greater the depth
of cut was, the bigger and deeper the craters were
produced, and the coarser the machined surface became.
(3) The waveform and uctuation of cutting force were
inuenced signicantly by the depth of cut. The cutting
force with specic uctuation characteristics ocurred in
the specic type of chip formation. Surface nish and
cutting stability can be improved with the depth of cut
reducing.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the nancial support
from National Science Foundation of China (No. 50605008)
and Natural Science Fund of Guangdong Province (No.
8451063301001813).

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