Abstract.This paper investigates the wear mechanism of WC (tungsten carbide) drills in drilling titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) with graphene oxide suspended cutting fluid and conventional coolant. By analysing cutting forces and examining the worn surface of the drills, wear progression in the cutting experiments were discussed. A significant reduction in cutting force and tool wear was found in cutting Ti-6Al-4V with graphene oxide suspended cutting fluid compared to conventional coolant. The causes led to such changes were presented.
IntroductionTitanium and its alloys have been widely used in automotive, aerospace and biomedical industry owing to their excellent properties including high tensile strength and toughness, light weightstrength ratio and extraordinary corrosion resistance. However, Titanium alloys are difficult to machine due to their low thermal conductivity and high chemical activities. A lot of research had been conducted to reduce cutting temperature in order to increase tool life and improve machining efficiency. For example, Minton et al.[1] investigated indirect cooling with a diamond-coated internally-cooled cutting tool whilst machining titanium. Yamaguchi et al. [2] found that magnetic abrasive finishing of cutting tools could reduce cutting heat in machining of titanium alloys, because of the reduction in friction at the chip-tool interface and thus extend tool life. Huang et al.[3] investigated the drilling of SiCp/Al metal matrix composite with PCD tools and found the higher the cutting speed, the better the surface finish. Recently, various attempts to reduce tool wear have been made by using different coolants such as liquid nitrogen, powder suspended oil and water. For example, Davim and Mata [4] found that cryogenic cooling had substantially reduced the grinding zone temperature. However, due to the limited improvements achieved, these technologies have not been widely applied in practice. Graphene is a thin layer of pure carbon; it is a single, tightly packed layer of carbon atoms that are bonded together in a hexagonal honeycomb lattice. It is the best-known two-dimensional material, with its atom-thick layers proving plenty of fascinating material properties. One of the outstanding properties is its excellent thermal conductivity: the thermal conductivity of suspended graphene oxide is as high as 5300 W⋅m −1 ⋅K −1 [5], this makes for graphene oxide suspensions an excellent media which can be applied as cutting fluid [6]. Chu et al.[7] developed a canola-based cutting oil enhanced with graphene platelet (GPL) additives for high performance micro-machining applications, and found that graphene colloidal suspensions was an excellent alternative cutting fluid in reducing cutting temperature. In the past decades, graphene based cutting fluids had been tried in many applications for the machining of steel materials [8]. However, little research has been done to use graphene oxide powder suspended cutting fluid to drill titanium alloy, and it is unclear how the effects of graphene oxide s...