Abstract
This research conducted milling tests to study effects of cutting environment conditions of ball end mills on the characteristics of hard milling process. KP4 steels and STD11 heat treated steels were used as the workpiece and WC-Co ball end mill tools with TiAlN coated were utilized in the cutting tests. Dry cutting without coolant and semi-dry cutting using botanical oil coolant were conducted and MQL(Minimum Quantity Lubricant) device was used to spray coolant. Cutting forces, tool wear and surface roughness were measured in the cutting tests. Results showed that dry cutting of KP4 and hardened STD11 specimens produced better surface quality and wear performance than MQL spray cutting did.