FUNDAMENTAL TURNING CHARACTERISTICS OF A TRIBOLOGY-FAVORED GRAPHITE ALUMINUM ALLOY COMPOSITE-MATERIAL/

The applications of aluminum alloy-matrix composites are being increas ingly widened in both structural and functional parts of air and land vehicles. These materials are machined in many cases for the required dimensional control. This paper presents the results from a series of turning tests, in which a number of cutting conditions were used to ma chine an aluminum alloy matrix composite with 56% volume graphite part icles. The influences of the cutting conditions, including cutting spe ed, feed rate, depth of cut, rake angle and cutting fluid on the chip form, cutting force, surface roughness and tool wear were investigated . The underlying cutting mechanism is different from that of common me tal. Discontinuous chips, low specific cutting energy and tool wear on nose are the features in turning of this material. The obtained resul ts can be used for development of machining technique of this next-gen eration engineering material. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Limited.