Eco-friendly face milling of titanium alloy

Abstract

Recently, a use of difficult to cut materials including titanium alloy has been substantially increasing in aerospace and automotive industries. Eco-friendly machining technology, which eliminates or minimizes cutting fluids in machining fields, has been emerged in compliance with green manufacturing trend. In this regard, machining technologies, such as hard milling, laser assisted machining (LAM), and enhanced lubrication/cooling method, have been adapted by the industries. Among the technologies, cryogenic machining has been considered for a viable solution for the materials without any environmental problems. LAM and minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) can be useful method to cut these materials with an appropriate use. In this study, machining performance of ecofriendly machining techniques was compared experimentally for the titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V). The machining performance was evaluated in terms of tool wear and cutting force. From experimental results, coated cutting tool with flood cooling condition was not recommended in titanium machining. The cryogenic, MQL, LAM showed outstanding machining performance than dry and flood cooling. Especially MQL machining was superior with relatively simple system setup. In addition, lubrication and cooling mechanism by combination of MQL and cryogenic reduced cutting force and tool wear. For energy consumption, MQL and cryogenic methods can be a sustainable solution.