Machinability of austenitic stainless steel SS303

Stainless steel SS303 is a grade of material widely used in the manufacture of proprietary inserts for the electronics and automotive industry. Users have often reported machining difficulties with this material and very little information on its machinability can be found. Problems such as poor surface finish and high tool wear are common. Optimum setting of machining parameters, such as cutting speeds and feed rates, is critical with this material, especially in today's high volume production environment. Machining data from machine tool manufactures, material suppliers and cutting tool suppliers is not consistent and does not give reliable results when tested in practice. Third party data, from engineering handbooks, is out of date and is not representative of modern grades of material and tooling. Many of the current problems are attributed to work hardening of the material during machining, and a trial and error approach is adopted on the shop floor to avoid the conditions that lead to this phenomenon. Better scientific understanding of the mechanisms that contribute to workpiece surface integrity and to tool wear when working with this material is desirable. As a result, research was undertaken to develop some fundamental guidelines on the machinability of this grade of stainless steel. In the interest of reducing manufacturing and production costs, an on-line technique will be developed for the detection of work hardening of austenitic stainless steel SS303 in unmanned machining operations. A review of current on-line work hardening detection techniques is presented. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V.. All rights reserved.