High-speed machining of titanium alloys using the driven rotary tool

Machining of titanium at high cutting speeds such as from 4 m/s to 8 m/s is very challenging. In this paper. a new generation of driven rotary lathe tool was developed for high-speed machining of a titanium alloy, Ti-6Al-4V. The rotary tool was designed and fabricated based on the requirements of compact structure, sufficient stiffness and minimal edge runout. Cylindrical turning experiments were conducted using the driven rotary tool (DRT) and a stationary cutting tool with the same insert, for comparison in the high-speed machining of Ti-6Al-4V. The results showed that the DRT can significantly increase tool life. Increase in tool life of more than 60 times was achieved under certain conditions. The effects of the rotational speed of the insert were also investigated experimentally, Cutting forces were found to decline slightly with increase of the rotational speed. Tool wear appears to increase with the rotational speed in a certain speed range. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.