Numerical analysis of coating–substrate systems

Coated tools having a higher edge life compared to uncoated ones are well suited for high speed or dry machining and produce a higher product quality. So coating technology gained a growing importance for industrial applications. To achieve further progress in the development of new coating systems, it is desirable to combine the experimental dominated developing process with numerical simulations for the influence of external loads on the stability of the coatings, which mainly depends on the deformation state and on the stress–strain situation inside the tool. These quantities are computable by 3D finite element simulations. Since the thickness of the coatings is tiny compared to toolsʹ measures, such computations must be performed on highly graded meshes to lay hold of the toolʹs geometry as well as of the microscopic layers. Even when adapting the mesh density to the accuracy requirements in an optimal manner, the dimension of the FE systems, the computational effort and the storage requirements are extremely large, pushing the limits of standard hardware, even when advanced storage technologies and solvers for the FE matrices are used. On parallel computers, the runtime may be considerably reduced and the available storage is substantially enlarged.