Titanium alloy is a kind of hard-to-cut material widely used in aerospace, military and medical fields, and mechanical drilling is the primary technique used for hole-making in titanium alloy materials. The drilling force is an inevitable concomitant phenomenon in the drilling process and thrust force is its most important component. During the drilling of titanium alloy, it is crucial to understand the fundamental characteristics and changing rules of thrust force for optimizing process parameters, improving machining quality and predicting tool failure. In this paper, four different techniques, such as direct drilling (DD), ultrasonic vibration drilling (UVD), peck drilling (PD) and ultrasonic vibration peck drilling (UVPD), were used to drill small holes into Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy, the thrust force was measured and its mean, maximum and peak-to-valley value were acquired from the time-domain waveform. Then the time-domain and frequency-domain characteristics of thrust force under the four techniques were compared, and the changing rules of thrust force with vibration amplitudes during UVD and UVPD were investigated. The results showed that, when compared to DD, UVD decreased the mean thrust force Famean by about 18.6%, and the force reduction effect was more significant as the amplitude increased. The variable velocity cutting characteristics and the antifriction effect of UVD were the primary reasons for the reduction of Famean. The pecking motion and ultrasonic vibration had a synergistic effect on reducing thrust force; UVPD could simultaneously reduce the mean thrust force Famean and maximum thrust force Famax. When the amplitude A was chosen within the range of 2–3 μm, Famax and Famean were reduced by approximately 37% and 40% in comparison to DD.

Nickel-based superalloy is a kind of metal material that is widely used to manufacture hightemperature parts in the fields of aviation and aerospace, but it is also a typical difficult-tocutting material. The precision cutting of nickel-based superalloy has always been an important manufacturing problem. Based on the tests of conventional drilling with three kinds of twist drills, the machinability of Inconel 718 was evaluated comprehensively by drilling force, tool wear and machining quality, and the cutting tools suitable for drilling nickel-based superalloy were chosen. Then the experiments of peck-drilling for Inconel 718 were carried out, and the process effect under different peck depth Q was deeply researched. The results showed that the HSS-Co (high speed steel with cobalt) twist drill can meet the needs of low-speed drilling of nickel-based superalloy, while the coated carbide twist drill has better service performance. The drill tip structure of dual clearance angle is beneficial to decrease the cutting friction and improve the machining accuracy. Compared with conventional drilling, the peck-drilling can reduce the cutting force and improve the dimensional accuracy and surface quality. However, it is very important to choose a suitable peck depth Q for fully exploiting the advantages of peck-drilling.Nickel-based superalloy Machinability Cutting tool Drilling process, Conventional drilling Peck-drilling