Effect of Friction on Critical Cutting Depth for Ductile–Brittle Transition in Material Removal Mechanism

The material removal process takes place due to phenomena such as plastic deformation and brittle fracture. A long continuous chip is formed when the plastic deformation dominates, whereas a fracture-induced discontinuous chip is formed when the brittle fracture dominates. The means of material removal changes at a certain cutting depth for a particular material, the so-called transition depth of cut (TDoC). This article aims to predict the TDoC while including the effect of friction between the tool and workpiece. We propose a modification to a recently developed model (Aghababaei et al., 2021, “Cutting Depth Dictates the Transition From Continuous to Segmented Chip Formation,” Phy. Rev. Lett., 127(23), pp. 235502) to incorporate the effect of friction. The model predicts a transitional depth of cut as a function of tool geometry, material properties, and friction. The model is supported by performing orthogonal cutting experiments on different polymers such as polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), polyoxymethylene (POM), and polycarbonate (PC). The model is also compared with existing models in the literature, where an improvement in the prediction of TDoC is shown. Moreover, the effect of the friction coefficient and rake angle on the TDoC is discussed. The results show that transitional cutting depth is reduced by increasing the friction coefficient. Alternatively, the TDoC reaches its maximum at an optimum rake angle, which is a function of the specific material being cut. The model aids in accurately predicting the TDoC, a crucial factor for optimizing various material removal processes.