Life time of cemented carbide inserts with Ni-Fe binder in steel turning

Health concerns associated with cobalt powder are a strong motivator for conducting research on alternative binders for cemented carbides. It has previously been shown possible to make cemented carbides with alternative binders, which offer good hardness and toughness. However, it is not fully known if these cemented carbides can be successfully used as metal cutting tools. In this study we have tested turning inserts from cemented carbide with a nickel-iron binder and compared these with cobalt based reference inserts in dry face turning of steel in a pairwise comparison. To facilitate relevant comparisons, both the alternative binder and the reference cemented carbide are gradient sintered and coated in the same way as commercial turning grades. It is found that the life time in this dry face turning test is only approximately 15% shorter with the nickel-iron binder than with the cobalt reference, which motivates further studies with this alternative binder. Flaking of the coating and thus less coating adhesion was identified as one reason for the shorter life time.