Relative Performance of Coated Ceramic and CBN Inserts in Hard Turning of Ti6Al4V Alloy

Abstract

Characteristics of cutting insert are key factors for the reliability of machining of difficult-to-cut materials such as Ti6Al4V alloy. Therefore, in this paper a comparison between the performance of two different materials, ceramic insert coated by (Al2O3+TiNC) and CBN, when turning Ti6Al4V alloy in dry environment. Effect of process parameters, feed rate, cutting speed and depth of cut, and their interactions on measured cutting temperature were examined for both inserts. Taguchi method was utilized to design of experiments (L9) and the results were analyzed by analysis of variance (ANOVA). From the results, CBN insert showed a good behavior for heat dissipation during machining compared with coated ceramic insert with a reduction in cutting temperature by 28%. Moreover, it was found that cutting temperature increased by increase in cutting speed and depth of cut and decrease in feed rate when using the two types of insert. In addition, it was observed that cutting temperature was affected by varying process parameters when machining by CBN insert more than the case of coated ceramic tool. The significant parameter affected cutting temperature in the case of CBN was feed rate followed by cutting speed. While at coated ceramic insert, the most significant parameters effect on cutting temperature was cutting speed

Keywords

• ti6al4v alloy
• cutting temperature
• coated ceramic insert
• cbn insert
• hard turning