FE parametric evaluation of macro-to-microscale dry milling for sustainable manufacturing of aerospace alloys

Micro-end-milling of energy-efficient materials has gained prime significance in advanced manufacturing due to their excellent machining characteristics. Numerous experimental and numerical studies have been conducted to establish the optimum parameters of the micro-end-milling process. Because of the complex interaction at the tool-burr interface that involves high material strain rates, this study investigated an extensive parametric sensitivity analysis to evaluate the reliability of numerical simulations. The numerical simulations of AA2024 and Ti6Al4V alloy micro-end-milling are performed in Abaqus/Explicit using the thermo-viscoelastic Johnson-Cook damage model. The parametric sensitivity analysis of both materials is compared, and the burr morphologies are analyzed with changing material characteristics. Tool-burr interface temperature, cutting reaction forces, material plastic strain, and stresses are evaluated to analyze the effect of the change in material characteristics with cutting parameters. Computations are performed at different cutting speeds, tool edge radii, cutting feeds, and contact friction to analyze their effect on chip stress, temperature, material strain, and the tool's thrust force. Feed and contract friction demonstrated pronounced effects on the chip-tool interface temperature compared to the contact friction for both types of materials. The computational results are verified with the experimental data.