Temperature dependent flow softening of titanium alloy Ti6Al4V: An investigation using finite element simulation of machining

Titanium alloy Ti6Al4V is the most commonly used titanium alloy in the aerospace and medical device industries due to its superior properties. There has been a considerable amount of research to better understand the serrated chip formation mechanism of titanium alloy Ti6Al4V by using finite element simulation of machining. An accurate representation of the behavior of the material is important in order to obtain reliable results from the finite element simulation. Flow softening behavior has been integrated into the material constitutive models to simulate adiabatic shear bands and serrated chips. Flow softening is usually related to the dynamic recrystallization phenomenon which initiates after a critical temperature. The aim of this study is to investigate the influence of various flow softening conditions on the finite element simulation outputs for machining titanium alloy Ti6Al4V. For this purpose, a new flow softening expression, which allows defining temperature-dependent flow softening behavior, is proposed and integrated into the material constitutive model. The influence of flow softening below the critical temperature, as adopted in recent studies, is also investigated. Various temperature-dependent flow softening scenarios are tested using finite element simulations, and the results are compared with experimental data from the literature. The results showed that the flow softening initiating around 350-500 degrees C combined with appropriate softening parameters yields simulation outputs that agree well with the experimental measurements. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.