What tools are recommended for machining titanium alloys?

Let's first talk about why titanium alloy process is difficult : Titanium has poor thermal conductivity, which is about 1/13 of aluminum, 1/5 of steel, and 1/25 of copper. During processing, you will find that titanium is very sticky to the knife. During the cutting process of pure titanium, the titanium chip is easy to stick to the blade, which makes the friction between the tool and the workpiece increase dramatically. The large amount of heat generated by friction is concentrated on the blade and the chip, which makes the tool wear quickly. At the same time, titanium has high chemical activity and is easy to react with oxygen and nitrogen in the air. The heat generated by turning causes oxidation of the chip and the workpiece surface, limiting the increase in cutting speed. The above phenomena are the reasons for difficult processing and fast tool wear. There are three solutions: The best cooling treatment is ice water coolant. When doing high-end precision machining, in order to achieve better size and surface effect, a refrigerator circulating coolant device is used.

 

Choose the right tool. There are many brands on the market. The first choice should be tools with high temperature hardness, wear resistance, compressive strength, bending resistance, and good impact toughness. YG8, YG6 and YW2 carbide tools are recommended. YG8 and YG6 are used for rough machining, and YW2 is used for surface finishing. YG6 and YG8 are cobalt-containing cemented carbide tools. YG8 is a tungsten-cobalt material with good wear resistance, use strength and impact toughness. YW2 is a cemented carbide tool containing tungsten, tantalum (niobium) and cobalt. It has a large amount of cobalt and high bending strength. The earliest coolant for cooling cutting fluid was blended with carbon tetrachloride, but carbon tetrachloride is volatile and toxic, and is now basically abandoned. We have used many kinds of tools, including very cheap ordinary white steel knives and high-speed steel. Now we use Japanese UNGALOY, KORLOR, MITSUBISHI, cutting fluid, emulsified oil YS901. The specific situation needs to improve the tool, cutting fluid, feed amount, and speed according to your own needs. If you want to reduce the cost of the tool, you have to do a good job of cooling and chip removal.