Exploring the effectiveness of negative and positive inserts in machining Inconel 718 alloy: a comparative study

Inconel 718 alloy is characterised by high strength and corrosion resistance and remains stable at high temperatures, so it is widely used in the energy and aerospace industries. However, machining this material is difficult due to its high strength, hardness, and high specific force coefficient exceeding 3000 MPa. Turning of the Inconel 718 alloy can be carried out with negative and positive inserts. Therefore, the impacts of the insert geometry on the turning process of Inconel 718, cutting force components, and surface roughness were studied. Three positive and three negative insert geometries were tested. It was shown that the key influence on the active components of the cutting force is the effective rake angle. The surface roughness, on the other hand, depends mainly on the cutting-edge radius. It has been shown that the negative insert geometry with γ = 6° and r_n=22 μm provides a 30% lower cutting force than the positive inserts and the same surface roughness. The developed models of the cutting force components proved that when cutting with positive inserts, a higher specific cutting force occurs for the Inconel 718 alloy than for the negative insert. It was shown that technological parameters had a very similar effect on the cutting force components and surface roughness parameters regardless of the blade geometry. It was proven that the use of positive inserts makes sense only for depths of cut no greater than the size of the corner radius.