Metal cutting is being advanced as a useful alternative to conventional methods applied to examine metal properties under extreme conditions. The process studied by researchers from Texas A&M University and the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (India) offers a relatively simpler means of producing a range of conditions for metal materials testing.

As the metal cutting process involves locally shearing or deforming the metal to extreme levels under high rates, the team hypothesized that it could provide fundamental information on the material's strength, resistance to plastic deformation or irreversible shape change.

To predict material changes, a high-speed camera was used to observe how metals deform and shear when they encounter a sharp cutting tool. A newly developed computational framework is then used to analyze the visual high-speed imaging data and deduce basic property characteristics.

The method visualizes different behaviors of metal when it is cut. As the gray knife on the right of both photos scrapes a layer of the metal's surface, a high-speed camera and computer program capture how the material is being shaped. Source: Dinakar Sagapuram/Texas A&M University

"An important aspect of this research is to establish mathematical optimization techniques that guarantee global optimality, thereby achieving the best possible solution," explained the researchers. "Otherwise, you might obtain solutions that seem satisfactory, but they don't accurately describe the material."

The researchers contend that the simple cutting technique described in Proceedings of the Royal Society A can be used by anyone with access to a machine shop to determine material properties without relying on complex testing capabilities.