Dry and Minimum Quantity Lubrication Machining of Additively Manufactured IN718 Produced via Laser Metal Deposition

Abstract

Inconel 718 (IN718), a Ni-based superalloy, is immensely popular in the aerospace, nuclear, and chemical industries. In these industrial fields, IN718 parts fabricated using conventional and additive manufacturing routes require subsequent machining to meet the dimensional accuracy and surface quality requirements of practical applications. The machining of IN718 has been a prominent research topic for conventionally cast, wrought, and forged parts. However, very little attention has been given to the machinability of IN718 additively manufactured using laser metal deposition (LMD). This lack of research can lead to numerous issues derived from the assumption that the machining behavior corresponds to conventionally fabricated parts. To address this, our study comprehensively assesses the machinability of LMDed IN718 in dry and minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) cutting environments. Our main goal is to understand how LMD process variables and the cutting environment affect cutting forces, tool wear, surface quality, and energy consumption when working with LMDed IN718 walls. To achieve this, we deposited IN718 on SS309L substrates while varying the following LMD process parameters: laser power, powder feed rate, and scanning speed. The results unveil that machining the deposited wall closer to the substrate is significantly more difficult than away from the substrate, owing to the variance in hardness along the build direction. MQL greatly improves machining across all processing parameters regardless of the machining location along the build direction. Laser power is identified as the most influential parameter, along with the recommendation for a specific combination of power feed rate and scanning speed, providing practical guidelines for optimizing the machining process. While MQL positively impacts machinability, hourly energy consumption remains comparable to dry cutting. This work offers practical guidance for improving the machinability of LMDed IN718 walls and the successful adoption of LMD and the additive–subtractive machining chain. The outcomes of this work provide a significant and critical understanding of location-dependent machinability that can help develop targeted approaches to overcome machining difficulties associated with specific areas of the LMDed structure. The finding that MQL significantly improves machining across all processing parameters, particularly in the challenging bottom region, offers practical guidance for selecting optimal cutting conditions. The potential economic benefits of MQL in terms of tool longevity without a substantial increase in energy costs is also highlighted, which has implications for incorporating MQL in several advanced manufacturing processes.