Titanium alloy is a kind of typical hard-to-cut material due to its low thermal conductivity and high strength at elevated temperatures, this contributes to the fast tool wear in the milling of titanium alloys. The influence of cutting conditions on tool wear has been focused on the turning process, and their influence on tool wear in milling process as well as the influence of tool wear on cutting force coefficients has not been investigated comprehensively. To fully understand the tool wear behavior in milling process with inserts, the influence of cutting parameters on tool wear in the milling of titanium alloys Ti6Al4 V by using indexable cutters is investigated. The tool wear rate and trends under different feed per tooth, cutting speed, axial depth of cut and radial depth of cut are analyzed. The results show that the feed rate per tooth and the radial depth of cut have a large influence on tool wear in milling Ti6Al4 V with coated insert. To reduce tool wear, cutting parameters for coated inserts under experimental cutting conditions are set as: feed rate per tooth less than 0.07 mm, radial depth of cut less than 1.0 mm, and cutting speed sets between 60 and 150 m/min. Investigation on the relationship between tool wear and cutting force coefficients shows that tangential edge constant increases with tool wear and cutter edge chipping can lead to a great variety of tangential cutting force coefficient. The proposed research provides the basic data for evaluating the machinability of milling Ti6Al4 V alloy with coated inserts, and the recommend cutting parameters can be immediately applied in practical production.
Milling of the thin-walled workpiece in the aerospace industry is a critical process due to the high flexibility of the workpiece. In this paper, a flexible fixture based on the magnetorheological(MR) fluids is designed to investigate the regenerative chatter suppression during the machining.Based on the analysis of typical structural components in the aerospace industry, a general complex thin-walled workpiece with fixture and damping constraint can be equivalent as a rectangular cantilever beam. On the basis of the equivalent models, natural frequency and mode shape function of the thin-walled workpiece is obtained according to the Euler–Bernoulli beam assumptions. Then,the displacement response function of the bending vibration of the beam is represented by the product of all the mode shape function and the generalized coordinate. Furthermore, a dynamic equation of the workpiece-fixture system considering the external damping factor is proposed using the Lagrangian method in terms of all the mode shape function and the generalized coordinate, and the response of system under the dynamic cutting force is calculated to evaluate the stability of the milling process under damping control. Finally, the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach are validated by the impact hammer experiments and several machining tests.
An analytical model for chatter stability prediction in bull-nose end milling of aero-engine casings is presented in this paper. And the mechanics and dynamics variations due to the complex cutter and workpiece geometry are considered by analyzing the effects of the lead angle on the milling process. Firstly, the tool-workpiece engagement region is obtained by using a previously developed method and divided into several disk elements along the tool-axis direction.Secondly, a 3D dynamic model for stability limit calculation is developed and simplified into a 1D model in normal direction considering only the dominant mode of the workpiece. Then the cutting force coefficients, the start and exit angles corresponding to each disk element are determined. And the total stability lobe diagram is calculated using an iterative algorithm. Finally, several experimental tests are carried out to validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed prediction approach.
