Qualification of coatings to predict wear behavior of micro blasted cutting tools

In today's production engineering nearly every cutting tool is coated. In the field of coating technology and tool treatment blasting is a common way to increase tool life or hold it on a constant level for several reconditioning steps. The latest innovation referring blasting are micro blasted coatings. For this technology a parameter variation was examined and the consequential tool life was compared with common testing method for tool systems in order to qualify the coating treatment. The investigations were carried out using an aluminum and zirconium oxide as blasting abrasive and by varying the blasting parameters pressure and duration. Finally, the treatment led to an optimized tool wear behavior due to micro blasting of the coating and the wear behavior could be referenced against the testing methods.