Diamond Tool Wear when Cutting Amorphous Polymers

Precision turning of polymeric materials increases form and shape accuracies in respect to the conventional techniques, but the relatively large tool wear of the mono-crystalline diamond tools may be a problem. This paper will discus possible tool wear mechanisms that occur during diamond turning of glassy (amorphous) polymers. Special attention is given to thermal-oxidative tool wear, tribo-electric tool wear and tribo-chemical tool wear. It will be shown that tribo-electric and tribo-chemical tool wear play an important role in the precision turning process of polymers.