Estimation of Circular Saw Tooth Microgeometry

Abstract

This study solves the problem of estimating the microgeometry of a circular saw tooth. For research, a circular saw with one false tooth, equipped with a VK6M hard alloy plate, was used as a cutting tool. The purpose of this study is to attempt to estimate the real wear curve of a wood-cutting tool edge. The cutting was performed on an experimental installation, which is a drive shaft with a saw attached to it, with the possibility of adjusting the cutting and feeding speeds. The tooth tip was photographed after some wear in a plane perpendicular to the short blade edge with 30-50x magnification. The tooth contour was measured using a large BMI-2 toolmaker microscope. As a result of the study, a method for estimating the sharpness of the tool edge using tangent and subsequent calculations has been developed, which allows figuring out both the local curvature and the average curvature of the entire form of tooth. This method allows finding the sections of the form of tooth with minimal and maximum curvature, as well as figuring out the curvature of a particular section of the form of tooth and the area (wear) of this section. The proposed solution allows transitioning from qualitative features of wear to accurate quantitative estimates, expressed either in units of area or units of mass, which allows comparing the tool materials from which teeth are made in cases where microgeometry is approximately the same, while wear is different. The practical significance of this study lies in the possibility of estimating the state of the parameters of the cutting unit and allows predicting its changes during operation (the degree of wear, the frequency of re-sharpening, finding the ultimate tool service life)