Wettability analysis of titanium alloy in 3D elliptical ultrasonic assisted turning

Abstract

Surface texturing is an advanced method to improve the tribological performance of the surface. Applying ultrasonic vibrations to generate this kind of the surface could be an efficient method. In this study, 3D elliptical ultrasonic vibration method is examined to produce semi-spherical textures on the surface. Titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) is selected as the workpiece to be textured, due to special usage of this alloy in the different fields. To analyze the generated textures, wettability and anisotropic wettability are implemented. As a result, it is shown that typical feed marks are almost eliminated and semi-spherical micro textures are generated on the machined surfaces. Accordingly, the wettability of the surface is uniformly improved in both directions (feed and cutting speed directions) causing the reduction of anisotropic wettability. Keywords: Wettability, Titanium alloy, Topography, Surface roughness, Ultrasonic, Face turning