Abstract

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OPTIMIZATION OF MACHINING PARAMETERS OF TITANIUM ALLOY

Mahendra Kumar Gautam, Abhishek Srivastava


High speed machining of highly reactive material like titanium and its alloys is still far away uncertain. For this reason, it is wiser to study the optimization of Machining parameters under transient cutting speed before advancing to high speed machining. This research work presents the influence of machining parameters like coolant flow rate, cutting speed, feed, Depth of cut on Machinability of Titanium alloy during machining. Titanium and its alloys are widely used in aerospace industries due to attractive characteristics of the material, they offers a combination of high strength, light weight, formability and corrosion resistance which have made it a world standard in aerospace applications. However, these materials have been classified as difficult-to machine material because of their high temperature strength, low thermal conductivity, chemical reactivity and relatively low modulus of elasticity. Furthermore these materials can catch fire at temperature 6100 C and the only material can burn in pure nitrogen. In machining process, most of the mechanical energy used to remove material becomes heat. This heat generates high temperature in the cutting region. The higher the cutting speed, the faster the heat generation and higher temperature resulted. The new challenge in machining is to use high cutting speed in order to increase the productivity. This is the main reason for rapid tool wear. For titanium and its alloy, this problem is more severe due to their low thermal conductivity. 80% of the heat generated in the cutting region goes to the cutting tool and cause wear. So it is convenient to use transient cutting speed for machining the highly reactive material like titanium alloy. Another Conventional method used to reduce this tool wear is by using cutting fluid. This cutting fluid acts as lubricant and coolant as well during the machining process. Usage of cutting fluid can increase the cutting speed up to 30% without affecting the tool life. However the usage of cutting fluid has negative effect to the economy, environment and health. Total elimination of cutting fluid seems to be not promising due the unsatisfactory tool life and poor surface finish. This rapid tool wears not only gives higher surface roughness value, but also higher micro hardness and major microstructure alteration.