Experimental Study on Cutting Forces and Surface Integrity in High-Speed Side Milling of Ti-6Al-4V Titanium Alloy

This article is concerned with the cutting forces and surface integrity in high-speed side milling of Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy. The experiments were conducted with coated carbide cutting tools under dry cutting conditions. The effects of cutting parameters on the cutting forces, tool wear and surface integrity (including surface roughness, microhardness and microstructure beneath the machined surface) were investigated. The velocity effects are focused on in the present study. The experimental results show that the cutting forces in three directions increase with cutting speed, feed per tooth and depth of cut (DoC). The widths of flank wear VB increases rapidly with the increasing cutting speed. The surface roughness initially decreases and presents a minimum value at the cutting speed 200 m/min, and then increases with the cutting speed. The microstructure beneath the machined surfaces had minimal or no obvious plastic deformation under the present milling conditions. Work hardening leads to an increment in micro-hardness on the top surface. Furthermore, the hardness of machined surface decreases with the increase of cutting speed and feed per tooth due to thermal softening effects. The results indicated that the cutting speed 200 m/min could be considered as a critical value at which both relatively low cutting forces and improved surface quality can be obtained.