ADVANCED MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS

ADVANCED MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS

The manufacturing technology has a very important role in process of product development. Development of newer materials and complex applications possesses challenging task with regard to the processing and manufacturing methodology. Advance methods of materials charactersation have helped immensely in the presence of development materials. The presence of new materials is of course based on there properties. However the process of product development involves ‘manufacturing’ steps which influences characteristics of the materials in the process.

The demands of manufacturing industry in the later half of 19 th century have led to development of improved machine tools, cuttings tools and production processes. A cutting tool is one of the important elements in realizing the full potential out of any metal cutting operation. Tool materials have improved rapidly during the last 60 years and, in many instances, the development of new tool materials has necessitated a change in a design trend of machine tools full use of the potentialities of tool materials for higher productivity. Over the years, the demands of economic completion of motivated a lot of research in the field of metal cutting, leading to the evolution of new varieties of tool materials, tool coating materials having remarkable performance and vast potential for an impressive increase in productivity. Progress from carbon – tool steel, high – speed steel, and cast alloy to carbides and ceramics has facilitated the application of higher cutting speeds at each stage of development, because of improvements achieved in properties of tool material and advanced coating materials.

To reduce tool wear in metal cutting, more than 80% of commercial cutting inserts used in the industry are coated with various coatings. Coatings reduce friction; lower cutting temperatures, increase wear resistance, and thus increase tool life. Most of the research on the effect of coatings on cutting tools is done through experimental studies.