Optimisation of cutting conditions in machining of cobalt-based refractory material

Milling a cobalt-based refractory material has been very little studied being proved to be very expensive due to rapid toolwear. The aim of this work was cost optimisation of cutting conditions in slot milling with carbide tools. It was used a Kriging interpolation technique of search space that avoids the local optima and decreases the function evaluation toward the global minimum. The objective and constraint functions taken into account were tool cost and surface roughness. Experimental results showed that optimal cutting conditions still led to an important abrasion of the tool, but minimised the adhesive wear at lower cutting speeds.