Investigation of Cutting Parameters in Sustainable Cryogenic End Milling

Cryogenic machining has attracted significant attention in both academia and industry due to its ability to improve the machinability of difficult-to-machine materials and eliminate adverse environmental and health effects of conventional cutting fluids. Despite the industrial introduction of cryogenic machining systems, there is a considerable research gap in selection of cutting parameters for cryogenic machining. Due to its wide acceptance, Taguchi?s process optimisation technique was used to identify the cutting parameters for cryogenic end milling of Ti-6Al-4V alloy. A combination of machining experiments and statistical analyses techniques and methods were undertaken to identify the level of cutting parameters with respect to different machinability metrics, namely surface roughness, tool life, power consumption and specific machining energy. The study indicated that cryogenic cooling facilitates adoption of higher cutting speeds in machining titanium alloy. This results in reduced specific machining energy whilst eliminating the necessity of employing conventional cutting fluids.