Mechanistic modeling of cutting forces in high-speed microturning of titanium alloy with consideration of nose radius

Abstract

Microturning is a micromechanical machining process used to produce microcylindrical or axially symmetrical parts. Microcylindrical parts are mainly used in microfluidic systems, intravenous micromotors, microsurgical applications, optical lens applications, and microinjection systems. The workpiece diameter is very small in microturning and therefore is greatly affected by the cutting forces. For this reason, it is important to predict the cutting forces when machining miniature parts. In this study, an analytical mechanistic model of microturning is used to predict the cutting forces considering the tool nose radius. In the semi-empirically developed mechanistic model, the tool radius was considered. A series of semi-orthogonal microturning cutting tests were carried out to determine the cutting and edge force coefficients. The mechanistic model was generalized depending on the cutting speed and depth of cut by performing multilinear regression analysis. In the study, the depth of cut (ap = 30–90 µm) and feed values (f = 0.5–20 µm/rev) were selected considering the nose radius and edge radius of the cutting tool. The experiments were carried out under high-cutting speeds (Vc = 150–500 m/min) and microcutting conditions. Ti6Al4V alloy was used as the workpiece material and the tests were carried out under dry cutting conditions. Validation tests for different cutting parameters were carried out to validate the accuracy of the developed mechanistic model. The results showed that the difference between the mechanistic model and the experimental data was a minimum of 3% and a maximum of 24%. The maximum difference between the experimental and the model usually occurs in forces in the tangential direction. It has been observed that the developed model gives accurate results even at a depth of cut smaller than the nose radius and at feed values smaller than the edge radius.