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Study on design, manufacture, and cutting performance of circular-arc milling cutters for machining titanium alloy

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Abstract

Titanium alloy is widely used for manufacturing structural parts of high-end equipment due to its excellent mechanical properties, despite difficulty in being machined. Nowadays, titanium alloy parts are mostly machined by ball-end milling cutters (BEMC), but the cutting edge structure of the BEMC limits the improvement in machining efficiency and surface quality of the parts. In this paper, a circular-arc milling cutter (CAMC) with large-curvature cutting edge was proposed; the differential geometry method was used for establishing the geometric model for the contour surface of the CAMC and the mathematical model for the spiral cutting edge line; the conversion matrix between grinding wheel and workpiece coordinates was introduced to derive the equation of grinding wheel trajectory when the rake face of the CAMC was ground; the self-designed CAMC was ground and tested in accuracy. The comparative research was conducted experimentally on the side milling of titanium alloy TC4 with the CAMC and BEMC, and consequently the variation laws of milling forces, wear morphology, and machined surface quality were obtained about the two types of milling cutters. The results indicated that the CAMC can effectively reduce the main milling force and keep the milling process stable. Moreover, the CAMC was worn slower and produced better surface quality than the BEMC.

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Availability of data and materials

The raw/processed data required to reproduce these findings cannot be shared for the time being. Data will be made available upon request.

Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51975168) and the Natural Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province (Grant No. LH2020E090).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical and Power Engineering, Harbin University of Science and Technology, Harbin, 150080, China

    Chen Tao, Liu Gang, Li Rui, Lu Yujiang & Wang Guangyue

Authors
  1. Chen Tao
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  2. Liu Gang
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  3. Li Rui
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  4. Lu Yujiang
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  5. Wang Guangyue
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Contributions

Chen Tao has organized the project, designed the cutting tools, and wrote the manuscript. Liu Gang has designed the cutting tools and wrote the manuscript. Li Rui has conducted the experiments and collected and analyzed data. Lu Yujiang has manufactured and detected the cutting tools; Wang Guangyue has reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chen Tao.

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Tao, C., Gang, L., Rui, L. et al. Study on design, manufacture, and cutting performance of circular-arc milling cutters for machining titanium alloy. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 117, 3743–3753 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-021-07915-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-021-07915-5

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