Ex Situ Residual Stress Analysis of Chemical Vapor Deposited Diamond Coated Cutting Tools by Synchrotron X-Ray Diffraction in Transmission Geometry

When machining difficult-to-cut, nonferrous materials, chemical vapor deposited (CVD) diamond-coated cutting tools are applied. The tools' favorable mechanical property profile is based on the hardness of the coating as well as the adaptability of the substrate. Nevertheless, the reproducibility of machining results and process stability are limited by insufficient coating adhesion. The resulting cutting tool failure is based on coating delamination initiated by crack development. By assessing residual stress as an influence of coating adhesion, an analysis of CVD diamond-coated tools is performed using synchrotron X-ray diffraction in transmission geometry. Investigation of a nanocrystalline and multilayer morphology on cobalt-based tungsten carbide (WC-Co) and a silicon nitride-based ceramic (Si3N4) provides the distribution of the principal in-plane residual stress tensor component s22 depending on the coating morphology and substrate material. Contrary to microcrystalline CVD diamond, nanocrystalline layers decrease the compressive residual stress. In addition, the CVD diamond coating deposited on the Si3N4 substrate material tends to induce an overall initial tensile residual stress that leads to increased tool performance compared to WC-Co-based coated tools. Variation of the coating morphology as well as the substrate material offers the possibility to extend the current model for residual stress-dependent tool failure.