title = "Tool Wear Monitoring and Management"

content = """
Tool wear is inevitable in machining, but monitoring and managing it effectively
prevents sudden failures, maintains quality, and optimizes tool costs. Recognizing
wear patterns and their causes enables proactive intervention.

**Types of Tool Wear:**
- **Flank Wear:** Material loss on the cutting edge flank, the most predictable
wear type. Measured by the wear land width (VB). Normal progression allows
planned replacement.
- **Crater Wear:** Depression on the rake face from chip flow and chemical
dissolution. Affects chip formation and cutting forces. Excessive crater wear
weakens the cutting edge.
- **Built-Up Edge (BUE):** Workpiece material welded to the tool tip, common in
gummy materials like low-carbon steel and aluminum. Causes poor finish and
dimensional variation. Sharp tools and proper speeds reduce BUE.
- **Chipping and Fracture:** Mechanical damage from overload, shock, or fatigue.
Chipped edges cause poor finish and dimensional errors. Catastrophic failure
risks machine damage and safety hazards.
- **Thermal Cracking:** Temperature cycling (interrupted cuts, coolant on/off)
creates cracks perpendicular to the cutting edge. Progressive cracking leads
to edge fragmentation.

**Wear Monitoring Methods:**
- **Visual Inspection:** Operators check tools during changeovers or when quality
degrades. Simple but subjective and reactive.
- **Fixed Tool Life:** Replace after predetermined time or part count based on
historical data. Simple but may waste tool potential or risk quality if conditions
vary.
- **In-Process Monitoring:** Spindle load monitoring detects increased cutting
forces from wear. Power consumption, vibration analysis, and acoustic emission
provide real-time feedback for automated warnings or stoppage.
- **Dimensional Trending:** Statistical tracking of machined dimensions reveals
tool wear patterns. Drift toward tolerance limits indicates imminent replacement need.

**Tool Life Optimization:**
Match cutting parameters to the application. Use appropriate coatings for the
workpiece material. Ensure rigid setup to minimize vibration. Apply proper coolant
to reduce thermal shock and heat-related wear. Balance productivity (aggressive
cutting) against tool cost and changeover time.

**Tool Replacement Strategies:**
- **Fixed Schedule:** Planned replacement during scheduled maintenance windows.
- **Predictive:** Monitor trends and replace before failure based on data.
- **Reactive:** Replace when quality degrades or failure occurs (not recommended
for production).

**Tool Reconditioning:**
Some solid carbide and HSS tools can be resharpened by specialized services.
Indexable inserts are discarded, but the carbide can be recycled. Evaluate
resharpening cost against new tool price and performance consistency.
"""

version = "0.0.1"
