炭素系硬質コーテッド工具のリサイクル技術としての高密度酸素プラズマアッシング

Abstract

DLC coated tools have been widely utilized in the dry milling and cutting of aluminum alloy parts and components; e.g. A5052 alloy parts were efficiently dry-milled by using the DLC-coated WC (Co) tools. However, since the original DLC coating was inevitably subjected to abrasive wearing, its thickness was significantly reduced during dry machining. In order to preserve high quality of machined products in continuous cutting operations, the used DLC coating must be removed or ashed away before grinding and polishing. Most of conventional methods required for long leading time even to make incomplete ashing. High density oxygen plasma ashing provided a solution to make perfect ashing of DLC coating together with metallic interlayers. In the present paper, this plasma system with quantitative diagnosis instrumentation was first stated to describe the effect of processing conditions on the ashing behavior. The DLC-coated end-milling tools were prepared to prove that the whole DLC-coating should be completely removed with fast rate. This ashed tool substrate was further ground and recoated to demonstrate via two types of dry end-milling experiments that the DLC-recoated tools should have the same machinability as the original virgin DLC coated tools.