Selection of Cutting Tools for Turning

α-Titanium Alloy Bt5

O. O. Awopetu, O. A. Dahunsi* and A. A. Aderoba
Mechanical Engineering Department, Federal University of Technology
Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study analysed the cutting forces during the turning of α-titanium BT5 as a
means of determining the most appropriate cutting tool for the cutting operation.
Titanium generally has special applications in military, aerospace, automobile, bio-
medical implants and materials, surgical devices and materials, and food industries,
but BT5 is highly valuable for the purpose of re-alloying in order to produce other
alloys. Titanium poses considerable problems in its manufacturing, due to its poor
machinability, this gives rise to high tool wear. This study has however identified
tungsten carbide cemented carbide tool BK6OM – whose closest ISO equivalent in
terms of properties and composition exist between KO5 and K10 or MO5 - as the
appropriate turning tool for the semi-finishing operations.

Keywords: Titanium, application, manufacturing, machinability, semi-finishing

Introduction Titanium is also the ninth most abundant

Titanium with its numerous unveiling
promises in terms of its varying areas of uses
and applications can only still be put in the
class of the materials of the future. 70% of
titanium produced today is used in the
aerospace construction and industry.
Titanium is highly resistant to corrosion
and it is biocompatible being non-allergic and
non-toxic, thereby being invaluable to the
medical and food industries as implants,
surgical devices, tablewares and food
processing components.
Titanium is particularly attractive for
engineering applications such as: military,
aerospace, automotive, energy and marine
constructions, because of it which includes:
non-magnetism, superior strength-to-weight
ratio (even when compared to steel), density
ranging between 4.43gm/cm3 and 4.85gm/cm3,
yield strength ranging between 172MPa (in
commercially pure, grade 1) to around
1,380MPa for heat treated β-alloys, endurance
limits of more than 50% and good fatigue
resistance in unnotched conditions.
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among the elements in the earth crust (Aziz
1998). The atomic structure of titanium
undergoes a transformation from a closely-
packed hexagon arrangement (also called α-
titanium), to a body centered cubic
arrangement (also called β-titanium) at 882oC.
Moreover, alloying metals can be added
to modify the transformation and produce more
useful alloys of titanium at room temperature.
These alloys have all alpha, beta or both (that is
alpha and beta, α+β) structures. The yield
strength of α-alloys of titanium range from
172.4MPa to 482.6MPa, α+β-alloys have yield
strength ranging from 861.8MPa to over
1206.5MPa, and β-alloys have yield strength
ranging from 792.9MPa to far more than
1378.9MPa (Aziz 1998).
Titanium alloy BT5 is a major
representive of the now widely used α-titanium
alloy. It is the most widely used alloy in the
production of all the other α-titanium alloy.
Meanwhile, there is no particular agreement, or
common recommended type of cemented
carbide tool in the various available handbooks
or scientific publications for the specific lathe
turning of titanium in the roughing, semi-
finishing and finishing operations (Awopetu et
al. 1995).
The growing popularity of titanium is
today rousing a lot of interest in the research
circles. Titanium and its alloys are expected to
push stainless steel to the second position in the
rating of the most used or useful metals soon
because of its extremely favourable properties.
However, it had been largely erroneously
conceived over the years that the behavior of
titanium and its alloys could be extrapolated or
deduced from the studies done on stainless
steel, especially in the process of chip
formation, because of the similarities that exist
in their properties (Awopetu et al. 1995).
Meanwhile, the ultimate object of
investigational work on metal cutting is to find
the conditions for maximum economy in
production, or in other words to determine the
working conditions which give the minimum
manufacturing cost per component. To this
end, full information must be available on the
Fig. 1. Orientations of the component forces acting on cutting tool
The component force Pz acts along the
vertical plane to the cutting tool edge. It is
commonly known as the tangential force. It is
usually generated by those tooling selections
and operating conditions that create resistance
to the rotation of the work-piece. In association
with the cutting speed this is the main power
consuming force (Shotbolt 1980).
The component force Px is known as the
longitudinal, feed or axial force. It runs parallel
to the longitudinal axis of the work piece and is
created by those tooling selections and
operating conditions that create resistance to
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manner in which the cutting forces vary with
the cutting conditions (Chisolm et al. 1959).
Turning of BT5 Titanium
Titanium poses considerable problems in
its manufacturing due to its poor machinability.
Cutting of titanium alloys is characterized by
low cutting speeds and high tool wear. Up to
the present moment, the rough turning process
of titanium alloys, where the determining factor
of the tool life is the mechanical characteristics
of the tool, is well studied unlike the semi-
finished turning of the alloys, especially α-
titanium alloy (Awopetu et al. 1995).
The orientations of the component
forces acting at the tip of a single point cutting
tool, as in the case of this work is shown
schematically in Fig.1 These forces are all
perpendicular to each other and combines
vectorially to give the overall resultant force
acting on the tool.
the longitudinal feed of the tool. In association
with the feed motion this also consumes power,
but as the feed rate is usually very slow
compared with the cutting speed, the power
consumed by or due to Px is normally much
smaller when compared to Pz (Shotbolt 1980).
The component force Py acts along a
radius of the work and is called the radial
force, it acts as if to force the tool out of the
work, it is generated by those tooling elements
that can create forces which act on the work
piece perpendicularly to its centerline. It does
not consume power.
 Fig. 2 shows the two principal planes
during a lathe turning operation, the component
forces Pz and Px acts on the cutting plane,
which is a plane that is tangent to cutting
surface and tangent to the cutting edge of the
cutting tool. Component forces Py and Px can
Fig. 2. The principal planes and surfaces in turning operations
Developing an effective and highly
productive technology of turning titanium
alloys is difficult because of the complexity of
the experimental methods of studying the
contact processes and cyclic chip formation,
absence of a common view about the
dominating mechanism of tool wear during
semi-finished operations as well as the
incorrect attitude of generalizing the results of
other titanium alloy based on an experiment
carried out on one particular alloy (Awopetu et
al. 1995).
Furthermore, the absence of experimental
data at real cutting speeds of the components
Px, Py and Pz of the cutting force on the tool at
different phases of the cyclical chip formation
makes it impossible to analyse the process of
plastic deformation taking place in the real
cutting zone of the titanium work piece
adequately. Titanium and its alloys present
many problems, though the cutting forces are
lower than that for iron and nickel alloys of
comparable hardness. This may be associated
with the relatively small tool contact area
developed and the consequent high stresses
(Alexander et al. 1987).
The American Society of Metals (ASM)
recommends the use of the general purpose
carbide tool with classification C2 under the
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be projected unto the basic plane, which
coincide with the base of the tool. For the
purpose of the analysis in this work only the
component forces acting on the cutting plane
(that is, Px and Pz) are considered.
commonly used industry code classification of
carbide tool materials for the cutting of
titanium and its alloys (Metals Handbook
1989).
Straight tungsten carbide (WC-Co)
cemented carbide cutting tool have longer life
with titanium alloys than the steel cutting
tungsten-titanium carbide (WC-TiC-Co) or
tungsten-tantalum carbide (WC-TaC-Co)
grades, but speeds may still be limited to
30m/min (Alexander et al. 1987). Also, Trent
E.M submitted that, with cemented carbide
tools, longer life is achieved with the use of the
titanium carbide (WC-Co) alloys than the steel
cutting grades containing titanium carbide
(TiC) and tantalum carbide (TaC). Moreover,
the introduction of TiC, which is so strikingly
successful in combating diffusion wear when
cutting steel, has an adverse effect in relation to
diffusion wear when machining titanium and
its alloys. Therefore, the resistance to diffusion
wear and resistance to deformation at
temperatures make the straight carbide (WC-
Co) grades of carbide cutting tools more useful
for cutting titanium alloys (Trent 1984).
Furthermore, some other references
recommends a wide range of cutting speed of
20-50m/min for semi-finished operation of
titanium and its alloys, meanwhile, this does
not support the small range of recommended
feed of 1.5-2.0mm/rev and depth of cut of 1-
2mm, but there is no agreed recommended type
of cemented carbide tool (Awopetu et al.
1995), this is with regards to specific alloy of
titanium.
Investigation Methodology
Composition, Properties and Turning
Parameters of the Work Material
The work piece material used throughout
the experiment was a rolled and annealed
titanium alloy in the alpha phase. It is coded or
designated BT5 by the micro-structural
classification of industrial titanium and its
alloys (this is a classification with Russian
origin) (Poduraev 1974).
The α-titanium BT5 contains 95%
titanium and 5% aluminum by chemical
composition. It possesses a hardness, which is
equivalent to about BHN 300 (Chechilin and
Hesin 1987), and was turned on an industrial
lathe machine model 1M63 with a 7.2KVA
electric motor using the following turning
parameters:
Cutting speed 60m/min
Feed 0.3mm/rev
Depth of cut 1.5mm
Cutting duration 5 seconds
Cutting condition Dry
Classification, Composition and Properties
of Cutting Tools
The following are the cemented carbide
tools used for the experiment: T5K10, T15K6,
BK6, BK6OM, BK8, BK10OM, BK10XOM
and BK10XTM. The cemented carbide cutting
tools come under the Russian Standard (GOST)
2209-69 as insert forms 0277A, which are
bolted or fixed mechanically to the tool holder.
Under the International Standard
Organization’s classifications, the tools listed
above have equivalents in the ranges that
consist of P10, P20, P30, M05, M10, M20,
M30, K01, K05, K10, K20, K30 and K40 (ISO
2004).
These tools and their compositions and
properties are presented in Tables 1 and 2
(which are shown below) in the following
categories:
i. Tungsten carbide cemented carbide tools
category, this comprise of cutting tools
with mostly plane (or straight) tungsten
carbide (WC) by composition, this group
has a designation which starts with “BK”,
and
ii. Tungsten-titanium carbide cemented carbide
tools category, this comprise of tools with
tungsten-titanium carbide (WC-TiC) major
composition. The cutting tools in the
category have their designation starting
with “TK”.

Table 1. Chemical composition, grain sizes, proportional limits and ISO equivalents for tungsten
carbide and tungsten-tantalum cemented carbide tools used (Poduraev 1974, ISO 2004).

Designated Chemical compositions (per Grain size Proportional ISO

code weight), in percentages microns (µ) limits equivalent
(compressive)
WC TaC Cr2C3 Co GPA
BK6OM 91.9 2.0 - 6.0 Up to 0.5 1.20 K05-K10, M05
BK6 94 - - 6.0 1 to 2 1.50 K20
BK8 92 - - 8.0 1 to 2 1.70 K30-K40, M30
BK10OM 87.8 2.0 - 10.0 Up to 0.5 1.40 M30
BK10XOM 89.2 - 0.8 10.0 Up to 0.5 1.50 M30

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Table 2. Chemical composition, grain sizes, proportional limits and ISO equivalents for tungsten
carbide and tungsten-titanium carbide cemented carbide tools used (Poduraev 1974, ISO 2004).

Designated Chemical compositions Grain size Proportional ISO

code (per weight), in percentages microns(µ) limits equivalent
(compressive)
WC TiC Co GPA
T15K6 79.0 15.0 6.0 2-5 1.15 P10-P20
T5K10 85.0 5.0 10.0 2-3 1.50 P30

The cutting tools were all able to be re- Side relief angle, α 15o
sharpen (regrind types) and were re-sharpen End relief angle, α1 15o
using an abrasive disc AYK-ACP Plan approach angle, ϕ 45o
100/80.50.100. The various signatures of the End cutting angle, ϕ1 15o
cutting tools are presented in the list below and Nose angle, ε = 180 - ( ϕ + ϕ1) = 120o
Fig. 3. Nose radius 0.1-0.2mm
Rake angle 0o

Fig. 3. Single-point cutting tool angles shown in auxiliary views

Experimental Procedure
A dynamometer, YDM-600, was
mounted on the carriage in place of the tool
post on the 1M63 industrial lathe machine. The
dynamometer was capable of measuring and
monitoring the behavior of the component
forces over the span of the cutting period. The
dynamometer is connected to a four
independent channel signal amplifier that was
connected to a 12-channel oscillograph, H700,
equipped with a plotter. The plotter plots the
values of the component forces measured on
ultra-violet, photo-paper.
The ultra-violet papers were used because
of the need to instantly develop and print-out
the fixed plotted signals as soon as the paper
gets exposed to sunlight rays, thereby reducing
the time required for analysis. The plotter was
set to pull the photo-paper at 5000mm/sec with
time indication marks at every 0.002 seconds
interval being one half of the maximum pulling
speed.
The thermal conductivity of the tools was
also monitored; this is to ensure that all the
cemented carbide tools used were in the same
thermal conductivity range. The tool holder had
been constructed in such a way that it could be
connected to a voltmeter, to an amplifier and
then to the oscillograph, H700, in order to
monitor the thermal conductivity of each tool
throughout the cutting period.
The work piece was turned normally on
the lathe machine using the machining
parameters previously stated. The components
of the resultant cutting force were plotted and

200
analysed as the cutting tools were changed one
after the other. Each tool was used to turn the
work piece for the same cutting duration of five
seconds.
Discussion
Fig. 4. presents the graph of the
maximum cutting force component, Pz, and
800
700
600
Component Forces (N)
500
400
300
200
100
0
BK10XOM BK10OM
Cemented Carbide Cutting Tools
Fig. 4. Graph of the component forces on selected carbide tools
Tables 1 and 2 shows that BK6OM,
BK10OM and BK10XOM has the least grain
sizes which is less than or equal to 0.5µ, but the
grain sizes did not seem to influence the
performance of BK10OM and BK10XOM in
terms of the magnitude of forces resisted as in
the case of BK6OM.
It can also be seen that in terms of
chemical composition, the improvement in
BK6OM over BK6 lies in the 2% content of
tantalum carbide (TaC) in BK6OM, moreover,
BK6OM has much finer grains than BK6.
Similarly, although BK6 and BK8 (with
tungsten carbide composition) have higher
values of for the cutting force component than
T5K10 (as shown in Fig. 4), when the trend for
the feed force component is considered in
addition, it can generally be said that the
tungsten carbide-titanium carbide (WC-TiC-
Co) grade of tools did not perform as well as
the plain tungsten carbide (WC-Co) grade of
tools, this may be due to reasons already
feed force component Px measured for each of
the seven cutting tools considered. The graph
showed BK6OM as resisting the least cutting
force and feed force with values 367.875N and
191.295N respectively, which are
approximately half and one quarter respectively
for the tool with the maximum values (that is,
T15K6 with Pz = 740.655N and Px = 637.65N).
Cutting Force
Feed Force
BK8 BK6OM BK6 T5K10 T15K6
advanced by Trent E. M., which had been
previously stated.
It is also a well-known fact that the
tungsten carbide – titanium carbide (WC-TiC-
Co) grade of tools are more brittle than the
straight tungsten carbide (WC-Co) grade of
tools. This was evident in the wear noticed in
the tools in during the course of the
experiments.
Conclusion
In the process of metal cutting, the study
of the cutting forces is usually of great
importance because it enables or enhances an
effective design to overcome and resist the
forces with minimum rigidity permissible.
Although, it has often been suggested that
titanium and its alloys be machined at low
speeds because of its machining difficulties, α-
titanium alloy BT5 was turned at 60m/min in a
semi-finished operation wherein BK6OM
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(whose ISO equivalents K05-K10, M05) has
cutting force expected to be resisted was
generated during its cutting, and being a
straight tungsten carbide tool had better wear
resistance, when cutting titanium and its alloys,
than the tungsten carbide-titanium carbide
grades.
Acknowledgement
The authors wish to acknowledge the
authorities of Volgograd State University,
Volgograd, Russia, for providing the facilities
for this research work.
.
.
.
.
202
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