A study of cutting forces in high-speed dry milling of Inconel 718

Inconel 718 is one of the most commercially important superalloys but with very poor machinability. It has a very high yield stress and a high tendency to adhesion and work-hardening. A recent trend of improving the machining processes of difficult-to-cut materials is to move towards dry cutting operations. This paper presents an experimental study of the cutting forces in high speed dry milling of Inconel 718 using a milling cutter with coated carbide inserts. It is found that the peak cutting forces increase with an increase in chip load in a nonlinear way, but cutting speed does not show a significant influence on the cutting force for the range of cutting speeds tested in this study.