Investigation of cutting forces, surface integrity, and tool wear when high-speed milling of high-volume fraction SiC_p/Al6063 composites in PCD tooling

This paper focused on high-speed milling of Al6063 matrix composites reinforced with high-volume fraction of small-sized SiC particulates and provided systematic experimental study about cutting forces, thin-walled part deformation, surface integrity, and tool wear during high-speed end milling of 65% volume fraction SiC_p/Al6063 (Al6063/SiC_p/65p) composites in polycrystalline diamond (PCD) tooling. The machined surface morphologies reveal that the cutting mechanism of SiC particulates plays an important role in defect formation mechanisms on the machined surface. In high-speed end milling of Al6063/SiC_p/65p composites, the cutting forces are influenced most considerably by axial depth of cut, and thus the axial depth of cut plays a dominant role in the thin-walled parts deformation. Increased milling speed within a certain range contributes to reducing surface roughness. The surface and sub-surface machined using high-speed milling suffered from less damage compared to low-speed milling. The milling speed influence on surface residual stress is associated with milling-induced heat and deformation. Micro-chipping, abrasive wear, graphitization, grain breaking off, and built-up edge are the dominated wear mechanism of PCD tools. Finally, a series of comparative experiments were performed to study the influence of tool nose radius, average diamond grain size, and machining parameters on PCD tool life.