An Investigation of Effects of Tool size and Feed rate on Tool life in High Speed Milling of Ti-6Al-4V alloy

Selecting tool materials, tool sizes and determining the cutting parameters presents a great challenge in machining operations especially in high speed machining processes. In this study effect of feed rate which is one of the important machining parameters and tool size on tool life in high speed machining of Ti-6Al-4V alloy were investigated. Fixed cutting speed of 200 m/min, feed rate of 0.03 and 0.06 mm/tooth together with axial cutting depth of cut 5.0 mm, and radial cutting depth of cut 1.5 mm were employed as the cutting parameters. TiAlN TiN coated tungsten cemented carbide insert in two different size was used during machining operations. Flank wear land measurement was taken by using a toolmakers’ microscope and recorded accordingly throughout machining processes. The results showed during the machining employing both feed rate and using smaller tool size chipping occurred on the tool nose along with gradual tool flank wear. Also by increasing the feed rates utilizing the smaller size of tool highly affected tool life compared to employing the larger one during the high speed machining operations. Reduction the feed rate by 50 percent increased the tool life of smaller tool size by 200 percent.