Turning process as a common machining process to produce cylindrical shape parts, is one of the most common manufacturing processes for producing parts of desirable dimensions. It is used to remove unwanted material from a workpiece and obtain specified geometrical dimensions and also surface finishing. Understanding of material removal concepts in metal cutting is very important in design process and cutting tool selection to ensure the quality of the products. Since, experimental investigation on the field of metal cutting is expensive and has a high time cost and a lot of limits, today, researchers have applied the finite element method for their investigations. Recently, tool wear that has important role in quality of machined surface and economy of production, has been surveyed in the investigation by the finite element method. In metal cutting, tool wear on the tool-chip and tool-workpiece interfaces (i.e. flank wear and crater wear) is strongly influenced by the cutting temperature, contact stresses, and relative sliding velocity at the interface. These process variables depend on tool and workpiece materials, tool geometry and coatings, cutting conditions, and use of coolant for the given application. Based on temperatures and stresses on the tool face predicted by the finite element analysis (FEA) simulation, tool wear may be estimated with acceptable accuracy using an empirical wear model. According to the technical literature, several wear mechanisms can be defined, namely abrasion (related to thermo-mechanical action), adhesion (related to micro-welding and Built-Up Edge formation and removal), diffusion (chemical alteration due to atomic migration at high temperature), and fatigue. The above phenomena are generally present in combination, even if one or few of them are dominant (depending on the cutting parameters and tool–workpiece combination). For this reason, it is very difficult to define a general effective criterion for tool wear, because the proposed models are focused on some of the main wear mechanisms only. In this study, Deform 3D finite element software was used to simulate the cutting process (turning) and a suitable subroutine was implemented into the software in order to predict the tool wear. In the first of this research, with use of three empirical tool wear models: usui model, takeyama model and coupled abrasive-diffusive wear model , crater wear on tool rake face is predicted. Then, simulation results are compared to experimental measurement in order to introduce best wear rate model. coupled abrasive-diffusive wear model is introduced as the best wear rate model. In the second part of this research, coupled abrasive–diffusive wear model has been employed in order to predict crater wear in different cutting parameters: cutting speed, feed rate, depth of cut and different tool geometry: rake angle, entering angle and tool nose radius. Then effect of cutting parameters and cutting tool geometry on the tool wear are investigated with use of analysis of variance (ANOVA). Analysis of ANOVA for crater wear on the tool rake face revealed that cutting speed have most influence on the tool wear and then feed rate, tool nose radius and depth of cut, respectively have most influence on the tool wear. Influence of rake angle and entering angle is low on the tool wear. Key words: Machining, turning, tool wear, finite element, analysis of variance.
