Burr formation mechanism and morphological transformation critical conditions in grinding of nickel-based superalloy honeycomb cores

Abstract

Nickel-based Superalloy Honeycomb (NBSH) is widely used in aerospace field due to the high temperature resistance, high specific strength and light weight. However, the NBSH is extremely prone to form burrs during processing. The unreasonable burr morphology causes insufficient welding strength or false welding between NBSH and skin, resulting in premature failure of the parts. Hence, the burr formation mechanism and morphological transformation critical conditions in grinding NBSH were investigated based on finite element method (FEM) and experiments. Furthermore, the orthogonal experiments were carried out to investigate the effects of grinding parameters on burr and obtain the suitable parameter intervals to restrain the flash burr formation. The results indicate that due to the absence of supporting material, the extruded material of edge transforms into the Fourth Deformation Zone (FDZ). The FDZ rotates a certain angle due to the extrusion of abrasive particle, which leads to the fact that the FDZ cannot be removed and remains on the honeycomb wall, thus forming micro burr. If the material removal per unit time is large, the chip is not removed from FDZ. The parts that should have been chips are bonded with micro burr to form a flash burr. To restrain the flash burr formation, the suitable intervals of grinding depth, grinding speed and feed speed are 5–15 μm, 60–70 m/min and 500–1000 mm/min, respectively.