Study on the mechanism of cutting Ti6Al4V with complex microstructure cutting tools

Ti6Al4V, as an excellent high-temperature alloy, finds widespread application in key components within industries such as aerospace, automotive, and others. However, due to its high hardness and low thermal conductivity, conventional turning of Ti6Al4V often leads to significant cutting forces and elevated cutting temperatures. Consequently, this imposes higher performance requirements on cutting tools. In dry cutting or with a cooling strategy, micro-texture tools exhibit better cutting performance than conventional tools. This paper investigates the performance of the edge margin complex micro-texture tool and its influence on the machined surface during cutting Ti6Al4V. Through experiments and numerical simulations of the Ti6Al4V cutting process, the cutting performance of four different types of tools is studied. Simulation models of different cutting tools are established, and changes in cutting force, thrust force, cutting temperature, and Von Mises Stress are compared. The results indicate that, compared with the round edge tool, the maximum temperature decreases by up to 16.7%, and the maximum Von Mises Stress decreases by up to 69.6% with the edge margin complex rectangular micro-texture cutting tool. Moreover, the occurrences of self-excited vibration with the other three types of tools decrease by 4.3% to 48.6%. These findings contribute to improving surface quality and prolonging the life of cutting tools when cutting Ti6Al4V with the edge margin complex rectangular micro-texture cutting tool.