S. Ramesh, K. Palanikumar, K. Elangovan, SATHYABAMA UNIVERSITY, Chennai, India; L. Karunamoorthy, ANNA UNIVERSITY, Chennai, India
Machining plays a predominant role in making of components in many critical applications such as aerospace, transportation industries, and biomedical engineering. Environmental concerns call for the reduced use of cutting fluids in machining practices. New cutting techniques are to be investigated to achieve this objective. In the present work a specially formulated cutting fluid was applied as a high velocity, thin pulsed jet at the immediate cutting zones at an extremely low discharge with high speed using a fluid application system developed for this purpose during turning of titanium alloy. Aerospace material machining in complement with a plentiful supply of cutting fluid is the normal practice on the shop floor, which is supposed to exploit the cooling, lubrication and chip removal action of cutting fluids. However recent concepts and awareness of sustainable manufacture are often on a collision course with the use of cutting fluids. Large quantity use of cutting fluids pose problems of procurement, storage, disposal and maintenance. In other words, apart from the cost, flood application is not environment or people friendly. This factor assumes considerable significance in the recent climate of strict work safety and environmental protection. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations, the permissible exposure Level for mist within the plant (PEL) is 5 mg/m3 and is likely to be reduced to 0.5 mg/m3. This paper aimed at studying the performance of CBN tool inserts in the machining of Titanium alloy. Machining of titanium alloy is investigated in conventional dry turning and wet turning with minimal fluid application methods by varying parameters such as speed and feed, maintaining constant depth of cut. The cutting performance in turning of titanium alloy with pulsed jet coolant system is evaluated by using the performance investigators such as tool flank wear, surface roughness, and cutting force.
Summary: 1. Machining of titanium alloy is investigated in conventional dry turning and wet turning with minimal fluid application methods by varying parameters such as speed and feed, maintaining constant depth of cut.
2. Pulsed injecting coolant technique is applicable for machining of aerospace alloys.
3. Pulsed injecting coolant technique yields better cutting performance and surface finish.
4. Low cutting force improves tool life substantially.
