Boundary element analysis of the thermal behaviour in thin-coated cutting tools

Temperature measurement and prediction have been a major focus of machining for several decades, but now these problems become more complex due to the wider use of advanced cutting tool coatings. In all literature items cited the boundary element method (BEM) were used to find the distribution of temperature inside the uncoated tool body or along the tool–chip interface in the machining processes. The BEM-based approach proposed in this paper overcomes this limit and the temperature distribution in thin coated layers is well studied. In this study, a general strategy based on a nonlinear transformation technique is introduced and applied to evaluate the nearly singular integrals occurring in two dimensional (2D) thin-coated structures. For the test problems studied, very promising results are obtained when the thickness to length ratio is in the orders of 1.0E−6 to 1.0E−10, which is sufficient for modeling most thin-coated structures in the micro- or nano-sclaes.