The cutting sound effect on the power consumption, surface roughness, and machining force in dry turning of Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy

Abstract

Titanium alloys are widely used in various industries such as aerospace, petrochemical, marine, and biomedical due to their high corrosion resistance, high strength, good heat resistance, and lightweight. However, the low thermal conductivity of titanium alloys makes their machinability poor compared to steel alloys. Therefore, it is of great importance to evaluate the machinability of titanium alloys. This experimental study presents the effects of machining parameters on the machinability factors such as surface roughness, power consumption, cutting sound, and machining force in dry turning of Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy using CBN inserts. Sound emission is a substantial factor for the operator’s safety during the turning process. High cutting sound is generated due to removing a large amount of material from the workpiece using different cutting tools. Since there are not many studies related to the cutting sound in machining processes, the attempt was made to investigate the effect of cutting sound on the machinability factors. The variance analysis results presented the significant effect of cutting speed and cutting depth on power consumption. However, according to the normal plot of the standardized effect, all machining parameters have a high impact on the cutting sound. The highest level of machining parameters, especially cutting depth results in higher cutting sound due to the creation of vibration in the lathe and cutting tool. Besides, the feed rate was found to be the most influential parameter on the surface roughness with a 58.13% contribution. The machining force was affected by both cutting depth and feed rate. The findings revealed that increasing the cutting sound increases the machining force and surface roughness, while the power consumption drops. Based on the desirability function, 0.04 (mm/rev) feed rate, 0.05 (mm) cutting depth, and 60 (m/min) cutting speed were the optimum machining parameters for turning of Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy.