Experimental investigations on the ultrasonic vibration-assisted hard turning of AISI 52100 steel using coated carbide tool

Abstract

Ultrasonic vibration-assisted turning (UVAT) is a hybrid and eco-friendly machining technique. The UVAT is performed by superimposing high frequency and low amplitude sound waves on the cutting tool in conventional turning. In the present work, a comparative evaluation of the machining performance is presented during conventional turning (CT) and ultrasonically vibration-assisted turning (UVAT) of AISI 52100 hardened steel (62 HRC). Hard turning experiments were performed using a PVD coated TiAlSiN carbide tool considering the effect of process parameters such as cutting speed, feed, and depth of cut. The performance is measured in terms of cutting force and surface roughness. This study observed a better surface finish during of around 8.29% in UVAT when compared to conventional turning. Better surface finish achieved under UVAT could be attributed to better chip breaking and disentanglement of the chip around the tool during UVAT against long curly chips produced that further entangled on the tool while CT. These entangled long curly chips affected the surface finish. On the other hand, no significant difference is observed in cutting force while hard turning under CT and UVAT. This is mostly due to the fact that, although UVAT has less cutting force at slower cutting speeds, but it behaves very identically with CT when cutting speed approaches tangential velocity. This study finds further scope for machinability studies considering the effect of vibrations superimposed on a tool in feed, tangential, and radial directions.