Study of Blade Wear in Reciprocating Sawing

Previous work has resulted in an analytical model for linear sawing processes which incorporates key process parameters and is capable of predicting cutting rate. While this provides useful information to guide saw design and cutting, rapid blade wear has a pronounced effect. It is necessary to characterize this effect of cutting edge wear on sawing rates. In the present study, work was conducted using the reciprocating sawing process to assess geometric changes of individual blade teeth and how this affects cutting rate. Geometric changes resulting from blade wear were analyzed and an expression was developed that allows the edge radius to be predicted as a function of cutting conditions and time. The cutting rate model predicts that as edge radius increased, cutting rate would fall exponentially and this was confirmed by experiment. Predicted edge radius values in conjunction with the cutting model were found to provide good agreement with experimentally obtained cutting rate results.