Effectiveness of Diamond Blades in the Turning of Aluminium Composites

Abstract

Owing to their excellent strength-to-weight ratio aluminium composite materials are very readily used in the construction of means of transport. The parts made of such materials must be characterized by high reliability and workmanship. Hence, machining is the predominant method of manufacturing parts from composites. The problem with the turning, milling and drilling of ceramic-reinforced composites is the abrasive action of the reinforcement, resulting in heavy wear of the blades and so in lower surface quality and dimensional-shape accuracy and higher manufacturing costs. A solution to this problem can involve the blades made of superhard materials or properly matched conditions of machining with sintered carbide blades. This paper presents the results of the turning tests carried out on an aluminium composite material reinforced with long ceramic fibres. An uncoated sintered carbide blade is compared with a diamond coated blade and a polycrystalline diamond blade. Post-turning surface roughness and machining forces were selected as the main indicators of cutting ability. The effect of the blades on the forming chips is shown and the higher resistance of the polycrystalline diamond blades to the abrasive action of the reinforcing fibres is confirmed by microscopic photographs. Besides the confirmation of the higher durability of the diamond blades, the conditions in which when using these blades one can achieve better machining effects than the ones achievable by the compared tools are defined. Moreover, it is shown that by properly matching the machining parameters and aiding machining with oil mist lubrication, it is possible to obtain excellent surface quality by means of carbide blades. The minimum quantity lubrication also increases the life of the blades.

Assessment of the Possibility of Using Fractal Analysis to Describe the Surface Aluminum Composites After Turning

“…The tests presented in this paper aimed to expand the knowledge about the quality of the surface of aluminum composites after turning with carbide and diamond tool inserts under dry and MQL machining conditions. The experimental results reported here complement those presented in [27].…”

Drilling of Holes in Aluminum Matrix Composites at Dry and with the Minimum Quantity Lubrication of the Cutting Zone

“…The tested material was a composite developed and manufactured at Wroclaw University of Science and Technology. Until now, machinability, including the applicability of MQL, has been studied on the example of turning [31]. The aim of this research was to assess the possibility of using the minimum quantity of lubrication of the cutting zone and to determine the effectiveness of oil mist in the drilling of holes in metal matrix composites using the example of machining material developed at Wroclaw University of Science and Technology.…”

Application of discrete wavelet transform to analysis of cutting forces in turning of composites based on aluminium alloys reinforced with Al2O3 fibres

“…Machining with the polycrystalline diamond insert differs from machining with the carbide inserts. Naturally, the strongest effect of blade type is visible in blade wear intensity [38]. An analysis of figs 10, 14 and 18 and the data contained in the tables shows that cutting insert CD10 generates greater forces Fc, especially during turning at feed rate f=0.27 mm/turn.…”

“…The effect of coating application is evident in tool wear intensity. The reduction in coated insert wear was presented in [38].…”

“…Greater tool forces can be generated due to the fact that the shape of the diamond inserts rake face is different than that of the cemented carbide inserts rake face and the impact strength of diamond is lower than that of cemented carbides. Also the absence of a chip breaker on the polycrystalline diamond insert, resulting in longer chips, can affect the forces [38].…”