Machinability - General aspects
Machinability of stainless steels

Machinability can be defined as the ability of a material to undergo shaping by material removal. There are many machining techniques, most of which can be applied to stainless steels. We will divide them into two categories:

• Non-traditional machining methods

  These methods are classified according to the physical mechanisms involved:

  • thermal methods, using: electron beams, plasma, laser ;

  • chemical methods, including chemical dissolution and electrochemical machining;

  • mechanical methods, such as liquid jets with abrasives and ultrasound.

  These methods remain very marginal for stainless steels, due to their low productivity and difficulty of implementation.

  It...