Experimental study on the surface roughness of micromilled Elgiloy™

Abstract

Elgiloy™ is a cobalt-based alloy with excellent physical and chemical performance, and is used widely in medical and industrial applications. The machining accuracy, surface topography, and surface damaged layer play an important role in the use of the alloy for specific applications. In this paper, an experimental study on the surface roughness of precision micromilling of Elgiloy is accomplished by using a super-fine-grained tungsten carbide milling cutter. The surface topography of the surface of the slots milled is achieved with different values of feed speed and axial depth of cut. Three-dimensional (3D) measurement results are considered to reflect the surface topography based on a comparison of the difference between two-dimensional (2D) and 3D surface roughness measurements. The arithmetic mean deviation of the slots’ 3D surface is achieved by using a white light interferometric profilometer. By using analysis of variance (ANOVA), the factors of feed speed, axial depth of cut, and their interaction are proven to be the most important factors relating to the magnitude of surface roughness.