Effect of volcano-like textured coated tools on machining of Ti6Al4V: an experimental and simulative investigation

In this work, the main aim is to reduce the adhesion and wear that happened during machining of the Ti6Al4V alloy by employing volcano-like texture on the rake face of coated tool. A combination of experimental and simulative investigation was adopted. DEFORM-3D software with updated Lagrangian formulation was used for numerical simulation, and the thermo-mechanical analysis was performed using Johnson-Cook material model to predict the cutting temperature, cutting forces, chip morphology and tool wear. In cutting experiments, volcano-like textures with different area densities (10%, 20%, 30%) were fabricated by fiber laser on the rake face of cemented carbide tools close to the main cutting edge. Then, these textured tools were deposited with CrAlN coating through cathodic vacuum arc ion plating technique. Experiments in cutting Ti6Al4V alloy were carried out with the textured coated tools and non-textured coated tool under dry and wet cutting conditions. Then, the chip morphology, chip size and tool wear were investigated. The results showed that textured coated tools were superior to conventional tool. Especially in wet cutting, compared with those of non-textured coated tool, the adhesion area and the chip curling radius of the coated tool with texture area density of 20% (VCT2) were reduced by 31.2% and 49.7%, respectively. Therefore, VCT2 tool showed a better cutting performance. Finally, the mechanisms of textured coated tools under dry and wet cutting conditions were proposed.