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Recent Advances in Machining of Difficult-to-Cut Materials

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A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Manufacturing Processes and Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2021) | Viewed by 22366

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Salman Pervaiz

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Guest Editor

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Rochester Institute of Technology, Dubai P.O. Box 341055, United Arab Emirates
Interests: machinability investigation of difficult-to-cut materials; sustainable/environment-friendly machining; development and optimization of custom made cutting tools
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

There is a continuous growing concern in the machining of difficult-to-cut advanced engineering materials. These difficult-to-cut advanced engineering materials are favored for use in demanding applications due to their unique metallurgical properties, ability to operate at higher temperatures, resistance to corrosion and fatigue, etc. These materials include titanium- and nickel-based alloys, tool steels, stainless steels, harden steels, composites, shape memory alloys, cobalt chromium alloys, magnesium-based alloys, etc. These difficult-to-cut materials are most commonly utilized in the aerospace, biomedical, automotive, petrochemical, marine, nuclear, and sports-related sectors. However, when it comes to the material removal processing of these advanced difficult-to-cut materials, they exhibit poor machinability and a high processing cost. Assessment of machinability can be based on several parameters such as tool life and associated tool wear, cutting conditions, workpiece and tool material pair, power consumption, cutting forces generated during machining, chip formation, cutting temperature, etc.

Therefore, the objective of this Special Issue is the publication of original research and review articles in the field of machinability investigations of difficult-to-cut engineering materials, especially those that are utilized in the aerospace, biomedical, automotive, and nuclear sectors.

Suitable topics include but are not limited to the following:

Machinability investigations of difficult-to-cut materials based on cutting process physics;
Surface integrity of machined surfaces;
Cutting process modeling and optimization such as finite element (FE)-assisted models, etc.;
Micromachining mechanics, applications, and challenges;
Advanced cooling/lubrication strategies such as minimum-quantity lubrication (MQL) and cryogenic cooling, etc.;
Tribology of the cutting process;
Sustainability analysis of machining processes;
Nontraditional machining processes: laser, EDM, ECM, USM, water jet cutting;
Precision machining, micro/nanomachining;
Assisted machining processes such as vibration assisted machining (VAM), ultrasonic-assisted machining (UAM), etc.;
Application of artificial intelligence (AI) in the domain of machining;
Performance of novel cutting tool materials and geometry.

Dr. Salman Pervaiz
Guest Editor

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Keywords

difficult-to-cut materials
machining
machinability
modeling
integrity
tribology

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Published Papers (9 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 3000 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Reduction of Cracks in Marble Appeared at Hydro-Abrasive Jet Cutting Using Taguchi Method

by Sorin Barabas and Adriana Florescu

Materials 2022, 15(2), 486; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15020486 - 9 Jan 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1894

Abstract

The appearance of cracks in brittle materials in general and in marble, in particular, is a problem in the hydro-abrasive jet cutting process. In this paper is presented a method to reduce the appearance of cracks when cutting with a hydro-abrasive jet of marble by using statistical analysis. The Taguchi method was used, establishing the main parameters that influence the process. Research design was based on performing experiments by modifying the parameters that influence the process. In this way, it has been shown that the stochastic effects resulting from the marble structure can be reduced. A careful study was made of the behavior of marble under the action of the hydro-abrasive jet, and of the behavior of the whole process in the processing of brittle materials. Results of experiments confirmed the hypothesis that statistical analysis is a procedure that can lead to a decrease in the number of cracks in processing. The measurement was performed with precise instruments and analyzed with recognized software and according to the results obtained, the reduction of the number of cracks is achieved through use of low pressure, a minimum stand-off distance and a small tube diameter. In this way, the paper presents a new and effective tool for optimizing the cutting with a hydro-abrasive jet of marble. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Machining of Difficult-to-Cut Materials)

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19 pages, 6168 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Fundamental Investigation into Tool Wear and Surface Quality in High-Speed Machining of Ti6Al4V Alloy

by Adel T. Abbas, Essam A. Al Bahkali, Saeed M. Alqahtani, Elshaimaa Abdelnasser, Noha Naeim and Ahmed Elkaseer

Materials 2021, 14(23), 7128; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14237128 - 23 Nov 2021

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 1975

Abstract

This paper reports a fundamental investigation consisting of systematic trials into the response of Ti6Al4V alloy to high-speed machining using carbide inserts. It is a useful extension to work previously published, and aims at assessing the impact of the process parameters, depth of cut, cutting speed and feed rate in addition to cutting length, and their interrelations, on observed crater and flank wear and roughness of the machined surface. The results showed that abrasion was the most important flank wear mechanism at high speed. It also showed that increased cutting length accelerated crater wear more than exhibited flank wear and had considerable effect on surface roughness. In particular, crater wear increased by over 150% (on average), and flank wear increased by 40% (on average) when increasing cutting length from 40 to 120 mm. However, cutting the same length increased surface roughness by 50%, which helps explain how progression of tool wear leads to deteriorated surface quality. ANOVA was used to perform statistical analyses of the measured data and revealed that cutting length and depth of cut had the greatest effect on both crater and flank wear of the cutting tool. These results confirm that high-speed machining of Ti6Al4V alloy is a reliable process, with cutting speed identified as having a relatively small influence on the tool wear and resultant roughness of the machined surface relative to other parameters. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Machining of Difficult-to-Cut Materials)

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25 pages, 5867 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Hybrid Approach of ANFIS—Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm for Intelligent Modeling and Optimization of Plasma Arc Cutting on Monel™ 400 Alloy

by Mahalingam Siva Kumar, Devaraj Rajamani, Emad Abouel Nasr, Esakki Balasubramanian, Hussein Mohamed and Antonello Astarita

Materials 2021, 14(21), 6373; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14216373 - 25 Oct 2021

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 1892

Abstract

This paper focusses on a hybrid approach based on genetic algorithm (GA) and an adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) for modeling the correlation between plasma arc cutting (PAC) parameters and the response characteristics of machined Monel 400 alloy sheets. PAC experiments are performed based on box-behnken design methodology by considering cutting speed, gas pressure, arc current, and stand-off distance as input parameters, and surface roughness (Ra), kerf width (kw), and micro hardness (mh) as response characteristics. GA is efficaciously utilized as the training algorithm to optimize the ANFIS parameters. The training, testing errors, and statistical validation parameter results indicated that the ANFIS learned by GA outperforms in the forecasting of PAC responses compared with the results of multiple linear regression models. Besides that, to obtain the optimal combination PAC parameters, multi-response optimization was performed using a trained ANFIS network coupled with an artificial bee colony algorithm (ABC). The superlative responses, such as R_a of 1.5387 µm, kw of 1.2034 mm, and mh of 176.08, are used to forecast the optimum cutting conditions, such as a cutting speed of 2330.39 mm/min, gas pressure of 3.84 bar, arc current of 45 A, and stand-off distance of 2.01 mm, respectively. Furthermore, the ABC predicted results are validated by conducting confirmatory experiments, and it was found that the error between the predicted and the actual results are lower than 6.38%, indicating the adoptability of the proposed ABC in optimizing real-world complex machining processes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Machining of Difficult-to-Cut Materials)

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16 pages, 1444 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Estimation of Machining Sustainability Using Fuzzy Rule-Based System

by Asif Iqbal, Guolong Zhao, Quentin Cheok and Ning He

Materials 2021, 14(19), 5473; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14195473 - 22 Sep 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1665

Abstract

Quantification of a highly qualitative term ‘sustainability’, especially from the perspective of manufacturing, is a contemporary issue. An inference mechanism, based on approximate reasoning, is required to tackle the complexities and uncertainties of the manufacturing domain. The work presents development of a fuzzy rule-based system to quantify sustainability of the most widely utilized manufacturing process: machining. The system incorporates the effects of key control parameters of machining on several sustainability measures, as reported in the literature. The measures are categorized under the three dimensions of sustainability and contribute to the sustainability scores of the respective dimensions with different weightages. The dimensions’ scores are added up in different proportions to obtain the holistic sustainability score of the process. The categories of the control parameters incorporated into the system include type of the process, work material, material hardness, tool substrate and coating, tool geometry, cutting fluids, and cutting parameters. The proposed method yields sustainability scores, ranging between 0 and 100 of machining processes against the given values of their prominent control parameters. Finally, the rule-based system is applied to three different machining processes to obtain the measures of their accomplishment levels regarding economic, environmental, and societal dimensions of sustainability. The sustainability score of each process is then obtained by summing up the three accomplishment levels under the respective weightages of the dimensions. The presented approach holds immense potentials of industrial application as it can conveniently indicate the current sustainability level of a manufacturing process, leading the practitioners to decide on its continuation or improvement. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Machining of Difficult-to-Cut Materials)

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22 pages, 4584 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Precision Hard Turning of Ti6Al4V Using Polycrystalline Diamond Inserts: Surface Quality, Cutting Temperature and Productivity in Conventional and High-Speed Machining

by Elshaimaa Abdelnasser, Azza Barakat, Samar Elsanabary, Ahmed Nassef and Ahmed Elkaseer

Materials 2020, 13(24), 5677; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma13245677 - 12 Dec 2020

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 2476

Abstract

This article presents the results of an experimental investigation into the machinability of Ti6Al4V alloy during hard turning, including both conventional and high-speed machining, using polycrystalline diamond (PCD) inserts. A central composite design of experiment procedure was followed to examine the effects of variable process parameters; feed rate, cutting speed and depth of cut (each at five levels) and their interaction effects on surface roughness and cutting temperature as process responses. The results revealed that cutting temperature increased with increasing cutting speed and decreasing feed rate in both conventional and high-speed machining. It was found that high-speed machining showed an average increase in cutting temperature of 65% compared with conventional machining. Nevertheless, high-speed machining showed better performance in terms of lower surface roughness despite using higher feed rates compared to conventional machining. High-speed machining of Ti6Al4V showed an improvement in surface roughness of 11% compared with conventional machining, with a 207% increase in metal removal rate (MRR) which offered the opportunity to increase productivity. Finally, an inverse relationship was verified between generated cutting temperature and surface roughness. This was attributed mainly to the high cutting temperature generated, softening, and decreasing strength of the material in the vicinity of the cutting zone which in turn enabled smoother machining and reduced surface roughness. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Machining of Difficult-to-Cut Materials)

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25 pages, 7287 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Achieving the Minimum Roughness of Laser Milled Micro-Impressions on Ti 6Al 4V, Inconel 718, and Duralumin

by Naveed Ahmed, Ateekh Ur Rehman, Kashif Ishfaq, Rakhshanda Naveed, Khaja Moiduddin, Usama Umer, Adham E Ragab and Ayoub Al-Zabidi

Materials 2020, 13(20), 4523; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma13204523 - 12 Oct 2020

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2444

Abstract

Titanium-aluminium-vanadium (Ti 6Al 4V) alloys, nickel alloys (Inconel 718), and duraluminum alloys (AA 2000 series) are widely used materials in numerous engineering applications wherein machined features are required to having good surface finish. In this research, micro-impressions of 12 µm depth are milled on these materials though laser milling. Response surface methodology based design of experiment is followed resulting in 54 experiments per work material. Five laser parameters are considered naming lamp current intensity (I), pulse frequency (f), scanning speed (V), layer thickness (LT), and track displacement (TD). Process performance is evaluated and compared in terms of surface roughness through several statistical and microscopic analysis. The significance, strength, and direction of each of the five laser parametric effects are deeply investigated for the said alloys. Optimized laser parameters are proposed to achieve minimum surface roughness. For the optimized combination of laser parameters to achieve minimum surface roughness (Ra) in the titanium alloy, the said alloy consists of I = 85%, f = 20 kHz, V = 250 mm/s, TD = 11 µm, and LT = 3 µm. Similarly, optimized parameters for nickel alloy are as follows: I = 85%, f = 20 kHz, V = 256 mm/s, TD = 8 µm, and LT = 1 µm. Minimum roughness (Ra) on the surface of aluminum alloys can be achieved under the following optimized parameters: I = 75%, f = 20 kHz, V = 200 mm/s, TD = 12 µm, and LT = 3 µm. Micro-impressions produced under optimized parameters have surface roughness of 0.56 µm, 2.46 µm, and 0.54 µm on titanium alloy, nickel alloy, and duralumin, respectively. Some engineering applications need to have high surface roughness (e.g., in case of biomedical implants) or some desired level of roughness. Therefore, validated statistical models are presented to estimate the desired level of roughness against any laser parametric settings. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Machining of Difficult-to-Cut Materials)

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16 pages, 9133 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Cryogenic Drilling of AZ31 Magnesium Syntactic Foams

by Sathish Kannan, Salman Pervaiz, Muhammad Pervej Jahan and DoraiSwamy Venkatraghaven

Materials 2020, 13(18), 4094; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma13184094 - 15 Sep 2020

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2219

Abstract

Machined surface quality and integrity affect the corrosion performance of AZ31 magnesium composites. These novel materials are preferred for temporary orthopedic and vascular implants. In this paper, the drilling performance of AZ31-magnesium reinforced with hollow alumina microsphere syntactic foam under LN2 cryogenic, dry, and Almag^® Oil is presented. Cutting tests were conducted using TiAlN physical vapor deposition (PVD) coated multilayer carbide and K10 uncoated carbide twist drills. AZ31 magnesium matrices were reinforced with hollow alumina ceramic microspheres with varying volume fractions (5%, 10%, 15%) and average bubble sizes. Experimental results showed that the drilling thrust forces increased by 250% with increasing feed rate (0.05 to 0.6 mm/tooth) and 46% with the increasing volume fraction of alumina microspheres (5% to 15%). Cryogenic machining generated 45% higher thrust forces compared to dry and wet machining. The higher the volume fraction and the finer the average size of hollow microspheres, the higher were the thrust forces. Cryogenic machining (0.42 µm) produced a 75% improvement in surface roughness (Ra) values compared to wet machining (1.84 µm) with minimal subsurface machining-induced defects. Surface quality deteriorated by 129% with an increasing volume fraction of alumina microspheres (0.61 µm to 1.4 µm). Burr height reduction of 53% was achieved with cryogenic machining (60 µm) compared to dry machining (130 µm). Overall, compared to dry and wet machining methods, cryogenic drilling can be employed for the machining of AZ31 magnesium syntactic foams to achieve good surface quality and integrity. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Machining of Difficult-to-Cut Materials)

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18 pages, 5479 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Optimization of Cutting Process Parameters in Inclined Drilling of Inconel 718 Using Finite Element Method and Taguchi Analysis

by Salman Pervaiz, Sathish Kannan and Abhishek Subramaniam

Materials 2020, 13(18), 3995; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma13183995 - 9 Sep 2020

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2995

Abstract

Nickel-based superalloys are famous in the demanding applications. Inconel 718 is one of the most commonly used nickel-based superalloys due to its extraordinary inherent properties. Inconel 718 is a suitable material for high temperature applications due to the properties such as anti-oxidization, high hot hardness, high creep, and fatigue strength. Drilling operation is one of the most widely used manufacturing operations in almost all industrial sectors. However, drilling operation is very complex in nature due to the presence of intricate geometry of the drill bit. In conventional drilling, cutting is performed by the combined action of the chisel edge and the two or more cutting lips. In depth analysis of the cutting process shows that chisel edge starts with an indentation at the center of the twist drill. Then away from the center, chisel edge performs orthogonal cutting with negative rake angle. Whereas, cutting action at the cutting lip is oblique in nature, and force analysis involves the use of element formulation due to involvement of radius. It is rarely found in the literature where drilling operation at different inclination angles is conducted and analyzed. The presented study numerically investigates the cutting performance of drilling operation, when operated at different inclination angles. The study revealed cutting force variation at different inclination angles due to the different tool workpiece engagement for each inclination. The magnitude of thrust force increased when inclination angle is changed from 30° to 60°. It can be linked with the higher chip load initially in this case as compared to the 30° inclination angle. The cutting temperature was affected by spindle speed (53.7%), followed by feed rate (33.31%) and inclination angle (3.44%). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Machining of Difficult-to-Cut Materials)

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20 pages, 4672 KiB

Open AccessArticle

On the Role of Hollow Aluminium Oxide Microballoons during Machining of AZ31 Magnesium Syntactic Foam

by Sathish Kannan, Salman Pervaiz, Abdulla Alhourani, Robert J. Klassen, Rajiv Selvam and Meysam Haghshenas

Materials 2020, 13(16), 3534; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma13163534 - 11 Aug 2020

Cited by 17 | Viewed by 2765

Abstract

The role played by hollow ceramic thin-walled aluminium oxide microballoons on the shear deformation characteristics of AZ31 Magnesium syntactic foam is studied through high-speed machining. The ceramic microballoons embedded in the AZ31 matrix provides the necessary stiffness for these novel foams. The effect of hollow ceramic microballoon properties, such as the volume fraction, thin wall thickness to diameter ratio, and microballoon diameter, profoundly affects the chip formation. A novel force model has been proposed to explain the causes of variation in cutting forces during chip formation. The results showed an increase in machining forces during cutting AZ31 foams dispersed with higher volume fraction and finer microballoons. At a lower (Davg/h) ratio, the mode of microballoon deformation was a combination of bubble burst and fracture through an effective load transfer mechanism with the plastic AZ31 Mg matrix. The developed force model explained the key role played by AZ31 matrix/alumina microballoon on tool surface friction and showed a better agreement with measured machining forces. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Machining of Difficult-to-Cut Materials)

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