Advances in Texturing of Polycrystalline Diamond Tools in Cutting Hard-to-Cut Materials

The operational ability of the unit or a mechanism depends mainly on the quality of the working surfaces that are obtained mechanically. Many materials can be assigned to a group of hard-to-cut materials that includes titanium- and aluminum-based alloys, a new class of heat-resistant alloys, SiCp/Al composites, and other alloys. The difficulties in their machining are related not only to the high temperatures achieved on the contact pads under the mechanical load and the extreme cutting conditions, but also to the properties of those materials related to the adhesion of the chip to the faces of the tool that hampers chip flow. One of the possible solutions to reduce those effects and improve the operational life of the tool, and as a consequence the final quality of the working surface of the unit, is texturing the rake face of the tool with microgrooves or nanogrooves, microholes or nanoholes (pits, dimples), micronodes, cross-chevron textures, and other microtextures, the depth of which is in the range of 3.0–200.0 µm. The review is addressed to systematize the data obtained on micro- and nano-texturing of PCD tools for cutting hard-to-cut materials by different techniques (fiber laser graving, femto- and nano-second laser, electrical discharge machining, fused ion beam) additionally subjected to fluorination, dip- and drop-based coatings, and the effect created by the use of the textured PCD tool on the machined surface.