Factors influencing steel tool wear when milling wood

The wear of high speed steel cutting tools after milling wood of four selected wood species was studied. For the experiments wood specimens were chosen with very different silica contamination, wood density, and high temperature corrosivity (HTC) of wood towards tool material. Analyses performed show that the silica content and wood density display poor linear correlation with the cutting tools’ wear, while the correlation of the HTC appeared very good. The silica contamination and the HTC effects overshadow each other. Thus, a theoretical multivariable simulation of the cutting edge wearing process, employing all experimental variables, was applied, providing a very good explanation of the analyzed problem.