Effect of cutting path strategy on the quality of convexly curved surface and its energy consumption

Abstract

The use of aluminium in automotive and aerospace parts as well as low-pressure moulds are widely popular in the manufacturing industry. The good machinability of its alloy is one of the many reasons why aluminium is a default choice. In this study, aluminium 6061 alloy was chosen. However, studies were done on the cutting path strategies in machining especially for convex curved shape and their effects on the surface finish of the workpiece were not very informative. Five cutting strategies were involved and compared – parallel, morphed spiral, spiral, radial and circle. As industries are moving towards minimising the carbon footprint of their manufacturing processes, this study provided a good opportunity to include the investigation of the energy consumption of the cutting path strategy as well. Essentially, this study was aimed to investigate the effect of cutting path strategies on the workpiece's surface roughness, and the energy consumption of the machining process as well as to establish the optimum cutting parameters for the best cutting path strategy. Overall, the parallel cutting path strategy was found to be the most suitable cutting strategy to be used for convexly curved surface machining.

Keywords

• Milling
• Aluminium
• Cutting path strategy
• Surface roughness
• Energy consumption