Experimental study for the effective and sustainable repair and maintenance of bars made of Ti-6A1-4V alloy. Application to the aeronautic industry

This paper presents an experimental study of turning for repair and maintenance operations of Ti-6Al-4V bars for the aeronautic industry. Turning operations were analysed to establish adequate conditions to reach the expected dimensional tolerances, form and surface quality of the workpieces under sustainable conditions. As the main criterion, restoration of the parts to the components so that they can resume their normal activity is considered. Moreover, minimisation of the cutting forces is considered critical to reduce the power consumption and tool wear. A full factorial design with four factors (environment, feed rate, spindle speed and type of tool) was performed to evaluate their influence on the cutting forces, roundness and surface roughness. Low feed rates were found to produce the lowest surface roughness and cutting forces, while the spindle speed has limited influence on the results. The environment and type of tool were found to be significant only for the cutting force due to the interaction of these factors with the feed rate. Dry machining proved to be a suitable environment to conduct the experiments, reducing the cost of the process and the environmental impact. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.