An experimental study and FEM simulation on machining characteristics in high speed milling of Ti-6Al-4V alloy

In this paper, the multi response optimization studies of titanium alloys have been analyzed by Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and Finite Element Methods (FEM). The cutting speed, feed and depth of cut are taken as input parameters and surface roughness, vibrational amplitude, elastic recovery, cutting forces and tool wear have been considered as machining characteristics/responses of the end milling of Ti-6Al-4V. The design of experiments follows the orthogonal array of L27 to perform experiments at three levels of cutting speed, feed and depth of cut. Two fluted tungsten carbide end mills are used in machining of titanium alloy. The process parameters are optimized for smaller values of surface roughness, amplitude of cutter vibration, cutting forces and tool wear and larger values of elastic recovery. In this work, numerical simulation is also carried out to study the machining characteristics for all the experiments. Interaction effect of the process parameters on the responses is also studied. These experimental and numerical values have been correlated. This analysis is used in online tool condition monitoring which improves productivity, machining time and tool life.