Control of Residual Stress by Cutting Condition on the Surface of Aluminum and Steel

Distortion of machined parts is still a big issue not only in the aircraft parts industry but also in any machine industry. Compressive residual stress is favorable compared with tensile residual stress after machining for fatigue and stress corrosion properties. However, it is not easy to get compressive residual stress on the surface after machining. Cutting is the main machining process for various machine parts including aircraft parts. Therefore, in this research, we try to find out the appropriate cutting condition to obtain compressive residual stress after cutting. Especially cutting conditions of up-cut and down-cut methods are compared from the viewpoint of residual stress after the cutting. The residual stress was measured by X-ray diffraction method using the μ-X360 device of Pulstec Industrial Co., Ltd. The results confirm that up-cut tends to generate compressive residual stress. On the other hand, down-cut tends to generate tensile residual stress. The details including the effect of repetitive processing are also discussed.