Sustainable machining of aerospace material – Ti (grade-2) alloy: Modeling and optimization

Abstract

The application of sustainable techniques in the machining of aerospace materials is quite prominent for attaining viability with respect to economic and environmental aspects. The recently embraced method in the context of sustainable machining includes the application of MQL (Minimum Quantity Lubrication) technique. This article presents an experimental investigation, comparison of empirical and experimental results, complemented with a desirability optimization technique, for study the impact on cutting forces, surface roughness, tool wear, surface topography, micro-hardness and surface chemical composition in the turning of the aerospace material – titanium (grade-2) alloy considering MQL conditions. In order to achieve this aim, firstly, the turning experiments were performed under varying conditions of process parameters such as cutting speed, feed rate and approach angle by using response surface methodology (RSM). Then, the analysis of variance and regression analysis were considered to analyze the effect of machining parameters on selected responses. Further, the comparison of empirical and experimental results for cutting force components has been made by using Kienzle approach. In the end, the model validation is performed by comparing the analytical predicted results of cutting forces with experimental and desirability approach that are in good agreement. The investigations showed that turning at low cutting speeds (200 m/min), low feed rates (0.10 mm/rev) and high side cutting edge angle (90°) ensures the high quality of surface roughness, lower cutting forces, tool wear and micro-hardness.