A study of regularly spaced shear bands and morphology of serrated chip formation in microcutting process

Serrated chips with regularly spaced shear bands (RSSBs) are commonly observed in the microcutting of non-ferrous materials with diamond tools. This paper investigates the chip morphology with RSSBs produced in the orthogonal microcutting of cold-rolled brass. The reasons why Merchant’s model and its modified versions fail whenever RSSBs evolve are critically discussed. This paper proposes a generalized model based on the theory of elastic strain induced shear bands where Merchant’s model and its derivatives are construed as special cases.