Optimization of tungsten carbide processing parameters for laser heating and ultrasonic vibration composite assisted cutting

Abstract

Laser heating assisted cutting is a lucrative technique for machining difficult-to-machine materials such as tungsten carbide (YG20), which uses a high power laser to focally heat a workpiece before the material removal with traditional or innovative cutting tool. In the latter case, the application of ultrasonic vibration to the cutting edge was found to replace the continuous cutting mode to the interrupted one, it reduces the adhesion and entanglement of chips, improves the tool wear and surface roughness of the workpiece. The combination of laser heating assisted cutting and two-dimensional ultrasonic vibration cutting methods has been successfully applied by the authors of this paper for cutting of tungsten carbide (YG20). In this follow-up study, the proposed composite method is experimentally and theoretically verified. Through the mathematical model and simulation analysis, its advantages, including small cutting force, softening the effect and improved machining properties of the processed material (YG20) are corroborated. The dependencies between the laser power, cutting speed, depth of cut, and feed rate on the surface roughness are established via the response surface methodology. The genetic algorithm is applied to the optimization of machining parameters by setting the material removal rate as the object variable and surface roughness as a constraint variable. The results obtained strongly suggest that the optimized parameters improve the processing efficiency and furnish the required processing quality.