Optimization and Prediction of Specific Energy Consumption in Ball-End Milling of Ti-6Al-4V Alloy Under MQL and Cryogenic Cooling/Lubrication Conditions

In nowadays, improve energy efficiency in the metal cutting industry is one of the main challenges. The selection of machining parameters and cooling/lubrication conditions is an important issue to assure better energy efficiency in the milling process. The present study explores the influence of three cutting parameters, namely, cooling/lubrication conditions, cutting speed and feed rate, on the energy consumption at ball-end end milling of Ti6-Al4-V. The main goal of this study is to increase the energy efficiency of the ball-end end milling process. To achieve this goal, techniques such as optimization and prediction of energy efficiency were used. The energy efficiency of the cutting process is defined through the specific energy consumption (SEC). In order to measure the total cutting power required to calculate the SEC, experiments were carried out in MQL and cryogenic conditions according to Taguchi’s L36 orthogonal array. Also, the Taguchi method was used to optimize the energy efficiency of this cutting process. The signal-to-noise ratio was applied to find the optimal levels of the cutting parameters to get the lowest value of SEC. Analysis of variance was employed to estimate the significance of control factors affecting SEC and to determine the experimental error. Finally, polynomial regression was utilized to formulate a mathematical model of the specific energy consumption.