3352 End Milling of Titanium Alloy with a Textured Ball End Mill

Abstract

Titanium alloy is increasingly applied to parts and structures in aerospace engineering, marine engineering, bioengineering, etc. because of its superior properties. These days, much smaller and more precise parts are required. However, machining of this alloy is still difficult though many different types of coated tools have been developed. In this paper, ball end mills with four different types of texture (grooves) on the rake face were fabricated by focused iron beam irradiation and changes in cutting forces due to the textures were investigated for realizing better cutting conditions. It was found that the textures on the rake face reduced the coefficient of friction.