Analysis of factors affecting the high-speed side milling of hardened die steels

This paper presents a study of the surface roughness obtained in high-speed side milling of hardened die steels. The influence of cutting speed, feed per tooth, axial depth and radial depth of cut is studied using a 24−1 fractional factorial design of experiments. The workpiece material was the die steel Böhler K340, hardened at 61–62 HRC. This material may be considered a substitute for traditional die steel materials. It has the advantage of having better performance than traditional die steels. A solid carbide end mill coated with (Al, Ti, Si)N was used as cutting tool. Many variables have been controlled before and during the machining process in order to obtain reliable experiments. Finally, it has been determined the factors and interactions that are statistically more significant for modelling the surface roughness, Ra.