Experimental Study On High Speed Milling Of Aluminum-lithium Alloy

New material is one important basis of the development of aeronautical and space technologies.In recent years, new type of aluminum-lithium alloy, as one of the most rapidly developingaeronautical metal material with high strength and light weight, is being applied in many keyaero-parts. However, its cutting performance has not been scientifically and systemically studiedwhich is bound to cause a bad effect on the processing quality and production efficiency. In this paper,the cutting performance of aluminum-lithium alloy is deeply studied from the aspects of cutting force,cutting temperature and surface quality of machined surface. The major research works are listed asfollows:Firstly, experimental study on high speed milling of aluminum-lithium alloy was carried out.Influences of cutting parameters and cutting tools on the cutting forces in high speed milling ofaluminum-lithium alloy are analyzed. Meanwhile, contrastive analysis of cutting forces ofAluminum-Lithium alloy,7085,6061and2024was conducted.Semi-artificial thermocouple method and infrared thermal imaging method were applied tomeasure the cutting temperature in high speed milling of aluminum-lithium alloy. The influences ofcutting parameters on the cutting temperature and the distribution of temperature field were analyzed.Contrastive analysis of cutting temperature measured by two methods was conducted.Experimental study on surface quality including surface roughness, surface morphology,micro-crack, metallurgical structure and surface stress was carried out by means of Rough meter,SEM, Eddy current testing, Fluorescence penetrates inspection, X-ray stress analyzer etc.