Influence of Microstructure on Chip Formation when Broaching Ferritic-Pearlitic Steels

Broaching is a specific process characterized by relatively low cutting speeds and uncut chip thicknesses. The latter is in the range of 0.1 to 0.25 mm in the roughing section of the tool but can decrease down to 0.0015 mm in the finishing one. This induces drastically different cutting behaviours compared to macroscale processes such as turning. The question of the scale effects in such conditions is thus clearly raising and especially the size and distribution of the microstructure. This paper proposes an investigation to assess the importance of the material heterogeneities on chip formation when broaching ferritic-pearlitic steels.