Plasma assisted machining (PAM) is a method to improve machinability of hard turning. The process of plasma assisted machining for turning applications utilizes a high-temperature plasma arc to provide a controlled source of localized heat, which softens only that small portion of the work material removed by the cutting tool. The goal of this study is to present a methodology for determination cutting force during plasma enhanced turning of hardened steel AISI 4140. In this regard, a finite differential model was made to estimate the uncut chip temperature under different plasma currents, cutting speeds and feeds during PAM. A mechanistic model developed to estimate cutting force under different PAM conditions by considering shear stresses in the primary, secondary shear zones and force on the tool edge. The proposed model was calibrated with experimental hard turning data, and further validated over practical PAM conditions. Mean errors of predicted values and experimental data is lower than 10 percent. It is shown that PAM can decrease main cutting force in comparison to convectional to 40 percent in turning of hardened steel at high levels of uncut chip temperature due to softening the material.

Keywords: Cutting forces, Plasma assisted turning, Hard Turning, Analytical modeling

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