Titanium and its alloys are attractive materials due to their unique high strength-weight ratio that is maintained at elevated temperatures. Ti-6Al-4V alloy are notorious for their poor thermal properties and are classified as difficult-to-machine materials. Drilling is an important machining process since it is involved in nearly all titanium applications. It is desirable to develop optimised drilling processes for Ti and/or improve the hole characteristics such as hole diameter, circularity and exit burr of currently available processes. Due to the low machinability of the alloy under study, selecting the machining conditions and parameters is crucial. The hole quality, thrust force, torque and exit burr were evaluated at various spindle speeds, feed rates combinations. The optimised parameter is chosen using the multi-objective weighted sum optimisation technique. The tool life for the optimised parameter was studied and the life of the carbide drill was observed to be 140 holes in drilling of titanium.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Prabukarthi et al. (2013) studied this question.