Tool wear and surface finish in high speed milling of aluminum bronze

Aluminum bronze C95800 is used extensively for the manufacture of propeller s because of its mechanical strength and corrosion resistance. Typically th ese components are machined from large castings and then hand ground and po lished. In this work, we demonstrate the possibility of using high speed ma chining with tungsten carbide tooling to significantly reduce machining tim es and minimize or eliminate hand polishing/grinding. Tool wear rates for t he high speed machining of aluminum bronze are assessed using three metrics : mean force, flank wear depth, and surface finish. Workpiece surface finis h and tool flank wear depth are assessed using a new replica block techniqu e. Wear rates in carbide tools remained low over a wide range of surface sp eeds such that material removal rates in aluminum bronze were increased mor e than tenfold over current machining practices. Our findings support the i dea that high speed machining to produce fine surface finishes through ball end milling with very closely spaced tool paths will be cost effective.