Laminated Metal Carbide-Metal Binder Components - M. Amateau, J. Hellman and P. Cohen
lead this effort to develop and evaluate high performance cutting tools for high speed machining of alloy steels, titanium alloys and difficult to machine non-ferrous alloys. This research is motivated by the desire to create compositionally graded structures that exhibit high strength, stiffness and control over thermal expansion properties. Such advances will lead to effective designs for layered cemented carbide cutting tools and the methods to fabricate them.

The undergraduate student who would join this team would be engaged in the following activities:

• Developing and evaluating methods to assemble layers (Tape casting and particles settling during liquid phase sintering are two different approaches which are likely to yield two different degrees of control.)
• Developing and evaluating consolidation methods such as liquid phase sintering, isostatic pressing and hot pressing.
• Testing cutting tools in machining and documenting the resultant damage.