Electrochemical Mill Grinding of (TiB+TiC)/Ti6Al4V Composites Using Abrasive Tool with Bottom Outlet Holes

Abstract

Difficult-to-cut titanium matrix composites (TMCs) are widely used in the aerospace, automotive, and defense sectors due to their excellent physical properties. Electrochemical mill grinding (ECMG) can achieve the processing effects of electrochemical milling and electrochemical grinding using the same tool, which has the potential to complete the rough and finish machining of TMCs in succession. However, in the rough machining stage, the bottom of the slot becomes concave due to the inevitable stray corrosion, leading to poor flatness, which increases the machining allowance for subsequent finish machining. In this paper, a bottom outlet hole layout of an abrasive tool with a diameter of 6 mm is proposed. Dynamic simulations demonstrate that the electrolyte flow rate in both side regions of the slot is significantly increased by the bottom outlet holes. The experimental results confirm that, compared with the tool without bottom outlet holes, a 61.2% reduction in the bottom flatness can be achieved when using the newly proposed tool during rough machining. After the finish machining, a slot with a width of 8 mm and a depth of 4.8 mm was obtained on the TMCs, which had a flat bottom and sidewall surface with good surface quality.