Hole-making processes and their impacts on the microstructure and fatigue response of aircraft alloys

A comparative study on conventional drilling and helical milling has been reported under the context of aircraft alloy hole making. The impacts of these two different machining processes on the microstructures and the fatigue performance of different aircraft alloys have been elaborated. Results show that both alloys undergo more severe surface/subsurface plastic deformation under conventional drilling comparing to helical milling process. Helical milling leads to a longer coupon fatigue life compared to conventional drilling for both alloys. The fatigue life of Al 2024-T3 is significantly longer than that of Ti-6Al-4V under all machining conditions. The use of coolant generally produces less damaged surface and leads to enhanced fatigue performance of the machined alloys. In addition, the machined surface roughness has been studied to further elaborate the effects of different machining processes.