Research on cutting forces and tool wear during tilted ultrasonic elliptical vibration cutting of Ti-6Al-4V

Titanium alloy has the characteristics of high strength, low thermal conductivity, high ductility, etc. When machining it by conventional process, there are problems such as high local temperature in the machining area, serious tool wear and low machining quality. In this paper, the cutting force and tool wear of TC4 titanium alloy under tilted ultrasonic elliptical vibration cutting (TUEVC) was studied by using a Suzhou Sunshines Ultrasonic Equipment. Firstly, the material removal mechanisms under the three machining modes of conventional cutting (CC), conventional ultrasonic elliptical vibration cutting (UEVC) and TUEVC were compared and analysed, as well as the influence of the tilt angle on the cutting force under ultrasonic elliptical vibration cutting. Subsequently, tool wear experiments were carried out for the three machining modes to compare the trends of tool front and flank wear, cutting force and surface roughness with machining length ( L ). The results show that compared with CC, the flank wear ( VB ) under UEVC and TUEVC is reduced by 57.06% and 69.42% on average, and the length of cutting edge wear ( l _c ) and the width of cutting edge retraction ( d _R ) are reduced by 21.94%, 23.62%, and 34.78%, 60.58%, respectively; compared with UEVC, the VB under TUEVC is reduced by 7.24% but l _c and l _R are relatively increased by 2.28% and 36.14%. Compared with CC, the tangential, backward, and axial forces under UEVC and TUEVC were significantly reduced; compared with UEVC, the backward and tangential forces under TUEVC were reduced by 0.6 N and 0.19 N on average, and the axial force increased by 0.51 N on average.The surface roughness under TUEVC was reduced by a maximum of 33.8% compared with that of UEVC, and the average reduction was 13.9%.