Effect of Surface Roughness and Residual Stress Induced by High Speed Milling Process on Short Crack Growth

Abstract

Surface scratches and residual stresses inevitably appear on the surface of the component as a result of the machining process. The damage evolution of surface scratch due to the combined effect of cyclic loading and residual stresses will be significantly different from the case where only the cyclic loading is considered. In the damage evolution of surface scratch, the short crack growth is of great importance owing to its apparently anomalous behaviors compared with the long-crack growth. In this paper, the effect of the surface roughness and the residual stress on the short crack growth is studied. Firstly, the surface roughness and the residual stress of 7075-T6 aluminum alloy induced by the high speed milling process with various cutting speeds and feed rates are investigated with the experimental method. The maximum height roughness parameter is measured, which is regarded as the surface defect induced by the milling process. The residual stress on the specimen surface is measured with the X-ray diffraction. Results show that the surface roughness becomes higher with the increase of the feed rate. However, the influence of the cutting speed on the surface roughness is not significant. The residual stresses on the specimen surface are all in the compressive state. The residual stress is more compressive as the feed rate increases. The effects of the process parameters on the surface roughness and the residual stress are described by the fitted formulas. Then a modified model is built to characterize short fatigue crack growth behaviors with the consideration of the residual stress. This model is proved to provide a realistic treatment of the short crack growth, as reflected by comparison with experimental fatigue crack growth data of medium carbon steel and 7075-T6 aluminum alloy published in literature. The effect of surface roughness and residual stress caused by the milling process on the short crack growth is also investigated by using the proposed model. The growth of the scratch is nonlinear when it is subjected to the cyclic load. The compressive residual stress reduces the growth rate of the crack. The crack with larger initial surface roughness grows faster than that with smaller roughness. The correlation of surface roughness, residual stress and crack growth length is obtained by the polynomial fitting. The investigations in this paper can help the damage tolerance design of structures and improve the awareness of the effect of the residual stress and surface roughness induced by the machining process on the short crack growth.