Spherical Fixed Abrasive Head Lapping of Titanium Alloy

Titanium alloy, such as engine blades and compressor discs, is widely used in aerospace. Still, in the processing of titanium alloy blades, there are some problems, such as processing deformation, poor surface quality, and difficult control of processing size. A spherical fixed abrasive head was designed and adopted to lap TC4 titanium alloy. The effect of the lapping step, radial speed, feed rate, and rotation speed on material removal rate, surface roughness, and flatness of the workpiece was investigated by orthogonal experiment. The experimental results show that the optimized lapping process parameters are a lapping step of 2 mm, radial speed of 600 mm/min, lapping feed rate of 0.15 mm, and head rotation speed of 2000 rpm. Under these conditions, the material removal rate is 0.67 mg/s, surface roughness Ra is 149 nm, and the flatness PV20 is 2.28 μm. Fixed abrasive lapping technology can significantly improve workpiece surface quality, laying a foundation for titanium alloy’s complex curved surface machining.