Effects of cooling conditions and grinding depth on sustainable surface grinding of Ti-6Al-4V: Taguchi approach

Abstract

In this research, the effects of coolant types, cooling techniques, and grinding depth on the surface properties of the Ti-6Al-4V after surface grinding with white alumina wheel were investigated. Three coolant types namely sunflower oil, formulated sunflower oil-based emulsions and soluble cutting oil were applied to the grinding zone using two cooling techniques: wet cooling and minimum quantity lubrication. The grinding was undertaken at grinding depths of 0.005, 0.010 and 0.015 mm. An L9 orthogonal array was used to design the experiments and undertaken the evaluation of the variable interrelationships. Surface hardness and surface morphology of the ground surfaces were determined using Vickers Macro-hardness tester and Zeiss Axio Zoom V16 optical microscope, respectively. Results from the signal-to-noise ratio analysis revealed that cooling technique has the most

influence while the grinding depth has the least influence on the surface hardness of ground Ti-6Al- 4V. The optimal parametric setting which gives the highest surface hardness of Ti-6Al-4V was

identified from the main effect plots and were sunflower oil (SO), MQL2 at a flow rate of 0.65 L/h

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AIMS Materials Science Volume 6, Issue 5, 697–712. and a grinding depth of 0.015 mm. Analysis of variance demonstrated that the individual contributions of coolant types, cooling techniques and grinding depths to surface hardness were 24.11%, 52.47% and 14.15%, respectively. The morphological investigations established that better surface finish was achieved through the application of sunflower oil-based emulsions in MQL cooling technique at a grinding depth of 0.005 mm.