Since titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V ELI has a good strength to weight ratio, it is utilised extensively used in heavy manufacturing industries such as marine, medical supplies, and aerospace industries. Meanwhile, in metal cutting, one of the important elements which must seriously consider is geometries of cutting tool. Carbide cutting tool is widely used in machining process for various metal types with suitable geometries carbide. This study investigated the mechanism of tool failure, the wear pattern and tool life of the CNC turning Ti-6Al-4V ELI by comparing it to three type of carbide tool geometry: rhombic 80°, rhombic 35°, and trigon 80°. The cutting parameters were arranged as cutting speed 90 to 150 m/min, feed rate with 0.1 to 0.2 mm/rev, and depth of cut was kept constant at 0.4 mm. A three-axis microscope was used to measure the flank wear for three type of carbide tool geometry. Based on the result, it was found that the rhombic 80° type resulted in longer tool life. On the other hand, the rhombic 35° carbide tool caused the highest wear rate (shorten tool life). The optimum responses were obtained at cutting speed 120 m/min, 0.2 mm/rev feed rate, and used 80° rhombic insert. From this research, even though titanium alloy, Ti-6Al-4V ELI is considered as material with low machinability, there are suitable geometry carbide available to give out the longest tool life thus reducing machining cost.
Sulaiman et al. (Wed,) studied this question.