Author : Raviraj Shetty, Tony K.Jose, Goutam.D.Revankar, Srikanth.S.Rao and Diwakar Shetty.S

Ti-6Al-4V components are the most widely used titanium alloy products in aircraft. Ti-6Al-4V is known as a difficult-to-machine material. When Ti-6Al-4V is being chosen for high volume and machine-intensive components, it is crucial that the machinability of these materials be understood. The machinability of Ti-6Al-4V has been investigated actively worldwide since 1980s and most researchers have found that polycrystalline cubic boron nitride (PCBN) and polycrystalline diamond (PCD) tools can be used to machine Ti-6Al-4V effectively. Driven by the high cost of these tools, it is still desirable to optimize the cutting conditions. The main objective of this paper is to determine the favourable machining conditions for Ti-6Al-4V. Conventional finish cutting (turning) using PCBN tool based on design of experiments has been conducted to achieve this goal. The first part of the paper concentrates on experimentally identifying the effect of dry, oil-water emulsion and NDM (Coconut Oil) on surface roughness under different cutting condition using Taguchi’s design of experiments on turning of Ti-6Al-4V. The second part of the paper concentrates on identifying optimum cutting condition for improving surface integrity. A second-order model has been established between the cutting parameters and surface integrity using response surface methodology for turning of Ti-6Al-4V under near dry machining.

Keywords:Near Dry Machining, Polycrystalline Cubic Boron Nitride, Titanium alloy, Design of Experiments

Article published in International Journal of Current  Engineering  and Technology, Vol.4,No.3 (June- 2014)