Surface Integrity of End Milled Ti-6Al-4V Using the TiAlN Coated Tool

Abstract

End milling titanium Ti-6Al-4V has wide applications in aerospace, biomedical, and chemical industries. However, milling induced surface integrity has received little attention. In this study, a series of end milling experiment were conducted to comprehensively characterize surface integrity at various milling conditions. The experimental results have shown that the milled surface shows the anisotropic nature with a surface roughness range in 0.6 μm–1.2 μm. Surface roughness increases with feed and radial depth-of-cut (DoC), but varies with the cutting speed range. Compressive residual normal stress occurs in both cutting and feed directions, while the influences of cutting speed and feed on residual stress trend are quit different. The microstructure analysis shows that β phase becomes much smaller and severely deformed in the very near surface with the cutting speed. The milled surfaces are at least 60% harder than the bulk material in the subsurface.