Prediction of surface roughness in diamond turning of Al6061 with precipitation effect

Abstract

Aluminum alloy 6061(Al6061) is one kind of precipitation hardening alloy, and its precipitate generation highly influences the mechanical properties and finished surface quality in diamond cutting. To accurately estimate the surface roughness in diamond turning of Al6061, an improved surface roughness prediction model is proposed in this study with the full consideration of the minimum undeformed chip thickness, the materials plastic side flow, elastic recovery and precipitation effect. Pre-heating treatments and diamond turning experiment are conducted on Al6061 samples to build the relationship between pre-heating conditions, precipitation generation and surface roughness in single point diamond turning (SPDT). The experimental results show that precipitation effects are found on both the deformed chips and the fresh generated surface. The effect of pre-heating conditions on precipitates generation agrees well with its effect on surface roughness of Al6061 in SPDT. Compared with the previously proposed models, the developed model considering the precipitation effect of Al6061 remarkably improves the prediction accuracy by 26 %.