Micro turning of Ti6Al4V alloy and mechanistic modelling of cutting forces

Micro turning is a method used in the production of micro cylindrical or axially symmetrical parts which are involved in micro mechanical cutting processes. Micro cylindrical components are mainly used in microfluidic systems, intravenous micro motors, micro surgery applications and optical lens applications. In micro turning, since the workpiece diameter is very small, it is more affected by the cutting forces. Therefore, it is very crucial to know/estimate cutting forces. In this study, a mechanistic model was used to estimate cutting force by considering tool nose radius. In the semi-experimentally developed mecanistic model, the tool nose radius as well as cutting edge angle are taken into consideration. A series of cutting tests were performed to determine cutting force coefficients. Validation experiments were performed for different cutting parameters, nose radius and cutting edge angle to verify the developed mechanistic model. Ti6Al4V alloy was used as the workpiece and the experiments were carried out under dry cutting conditions. The results showed that the cutting forces increased with increasing feed and depth of cut. In addition, it was observed that the difference between the experiments performed for different cutting parameters and the mechanistic model was acceptable.