Experimental study on end milling parameters of Ti6Al4V Titanium superalloy in different cutting environment

Abstract

Machining of super alloys becomes highly demanded in aerospace industries. Titanium alloys tend to fall under the above category due to its density ratio and high strength. Machining under dry conditions and conventional coolants were performing better under normal conditions. Also, disposal of contaminant coolants created a necessity to find an alternate to it. Cryogenic coolant is a recent sustainable green machining process which is considered as one of the efficient process to replace conventional coolants. In the study, Liquid nitrogen (cryogenic coolant) was utilized a cryogenic coolant to endmill the Ti6Al4V titanium superalloy at varying investigative parameters depth of cut, feed rate and speed of spindle. This study was also focused on comparing cryogenic coolant with dry machining by measuring its surface integrity. Cryogenic milling has given beneficial results when compared to dry milling. Taguchi L9 technique was utilized for experiment design and corresponding ANOVA was done to find the most influencing parameter and optimized values. At higher speeds and feed rate (i.e.,5000 rpm and 0.6 mm/min) around 15% improvement was found in cryogenic milling when compared to dry milling. In environment and health of worker or machinist point of view, cryogenic machining leads to clean and green manufacturing without compromising the quality of output.