The Effects of Nanoparticle Reinforcement on the Micromilling Process of A356/Al2O3 Nanocomposites

Improving scientific knowledge around the manufacturing of nanocomposites is key since their performance spreads across many applications, including those in meso/micro products. Powder metallurgy is a reliable process for producing these materials, but usually, machining postprocessing is required to achieve tight tolerances and quality requirements. When processing these materials, cutting force evolution determines the ability to control the microcutting operation toward the successful surface and part quality generation. This paper investigates cutting force and part quality generation during the micromilling of A356/Al2O3 aluminum nanocomposites produced via powder metallurgy. A set of micromilling experiments were carried out under various process parameters on nanocomposites with different nano-Al2O3 reinforcements (0-12.5 vol.%). The material's ductility, internal porosity, and lack of interparticle bonding cause the cutting force generation to be irregular when nanoparticle reinforcements were absent or small. Reinforcement ratios higher than 2.5 vol.% strongly affect the cutting process by regularizing the milling force generation but lead to a proportionally increasing average force magnitudes. Hardening due to nano-reinforcement positively affects cutting mechanisms by reducing the plowing tendency of the cutting process, resulting in better surface quality. Therefore, a threshold on the nano-Al2O3 particles' volumetric loadings enables an optimal design of these composite materials to support their micromachinability.