The coupling effect of micro-groove textures and nanofluids on cutting performance of uncoated cemented carbide tools in milling Ti-6Al-4V

Abstract

With the rapid growth of the aerospace, automotive and biomedical industries, the demand for hard-cutting materials such as titanium alloy has increased sharply. Severe friction and material adhesion exist between tool-chip contact interfaces are the challenges in machining titanium alloy. To solve these problems, the rake face of uncoated cutting tool was textured with micro-groove parallel to the main cutting edge by Nd: YAG laser (named TP). And, cutting tools without laser surface texturing (named NT) were also employed for comparison. Two different coolants were also applied. Nanofluids (named NC) were proposed as a coolant for milling titanium alloy, and conventional cutting fluids (named CC) were also used as a comparison. Then, series of experiments were carried out to investigate the coupling effects of micro-textures and nanofluids (TP + NC) on cutting performance of milling tools at various cutting conditions. Results obtained in this research indicated a dramatic reduction in cutting force of up to 38.4% and 27.75% of surface roughness and 63.3% of tool wear rate (TWR) in TP + NC when compared with NT + CC cutting condition. In addition, the mechanisms for the coupling effects of micro-textures and nanofluids were also revealed.