Experimental Study of Quarry Dust and Aluminium Oxide Suspension as Cutting Fluid for Drilling of Titanium Alloy

Abstract

In the aerospace field, titanium alloys are extensively used for the airframe and engine parts to improve aircraft fuel consumption. Drilling through these parts in a single-shot process to produce high quality holes is challenging. During drilling, high temperatures are generated owing to the friction between the cutting tool and workpiece, causing the process becomes inefficient in terms of tool life and surface quality. To reduce the temperature produced in the cutting zone, different types of cooling techniques during drilling have been used by researchers. In this study, the feasibility of quarry dust suspension as coolant in drilling of titanium alloy was performed. The effects of different concentrations of quarry dust on surface roughness, thrust force, and burr formation were evaluated, and their machining performances were compared with those obtained using aluminium oxide suspension. Before the experiments, both suspensions were prepared by dispersing quarry dust and aluminium oxide particles into deionised water at various concentrations ranging from 0 wt% to 0.10 wt%. Results indicated that by using 0.06 wt% of quarry dust suspension, thrust force and surface roughness showed an improvement by 8.31% and 18.29%, respectively, compared with those of aluminium oxide suspension at the same concentration. The burr height formed at the drilled holes using 0.06 wt% of quarry dust was also lower than that formed with aluminium oxide suspension at the same concentration.