With the increasing use of ceramic tool materials in applications, has come an increasing need for experimental data to assign the behavior of the life of these tool materials. Experimental results during turning operation show that it is possible to increase cutting tool life substantially by a proper variation of the cutting parameters used in this work.
The tool lives (tool flank wear land length) of three different ceramic materials. namely; Silicon carbide (Sic). Alumina (Alzo3) and partially stabilized zirconia (PS7.) in addition to, Titanium carbide and high speed steel tools are investigated in this work. Also, The effect of varying the cutting speed. feed rate and tool rake angle on tool life of each tool material is studied. It was found that the Sic cutting tool showed the highest tool life among all materials tested in this work. It was also noticed that increasing the cutting speed has led to an increase in tool life for ceramic tools only. However, increasing the feed rate and tool rake angle resulted in a reduction in tool life in all materials examined in the present study. Further analysis conducted on SiC tool material to examine the effect of the interaction of cutting parameters on the tool life.