Improved Machinability of Titanium Alloy Ti-6Al-4V

Titanium alloys are generally regarded as difficult- to-cut materials and plentiful research works have been conducted on their machinability in the past few decades with several diverse objectives, such as improvement on tool life, surface finish and surface integrity, investigation on chip and tool wear morphology, cutting force and vibration/chatter. This study introduces induction preheating as one of the new variable parameters to improve the machinability of titanium Ti-6Al-4V alloy. In the current work the influence of heating parameter i.e. preheating temperature, and the cutting variable, i.e. cutting speed, feed and axial depth of cut were investigated during end milling operation on a vertical machining center (VMC). The inserts used were uncoated tungsten-cobalt (WC-Co) carbide and polycrystalline diamond (PCD) attached to a 20 mm diameter end mill tool. The study comprehensively investigated the effect of preheating temperature on machinability parameters i.e. tool life, surface finish and cutting force. The effect of preheating on vibration/chatter, surface integrity, chip-tool contact length were also investigated.