Finite Element Analysis of Machining of Aerospace Alloy Al-6061

Abstract

The objective is to investigate the magnitude of residual stresses in the work-piece (Al-6061) and its sensitivity to cutting speed and feed by using numerical and experimental methods. Tensile residual stresses at the surface of component are generally undesirable since they contribute to fatigue failure, quench cracking and stress-corrosion cracking.

Measurement of residual stress has become as important as the measurement of usual mechanical properties in consideration of the fracture, fatigue, corrosion and strength characteristics of engineering components, i.e. their structural integrity to predict the load bearing capacity of engineering components and structures so that products are free of defects and have maximum performance.

Since, understanding of fundamentals of machining operations through experimental studies have some limitations e.g. cost & time therefore numerical modeling and simulation was carried out to reduce experimentation or rather eliminate it. 2D-model was developed by using Finite Element Methods to simulate orthogonal cutting of AL-6061 alloy in ABAQUS/ Explicit (V 6.12-1) and investigated the effects of different cutting velocity and feed rate on the residual stresses in the work piece material.

The FEM-model was validated by comparing the values obtained with the experimental results and found that the simulation results agree with the experimental values showing compressive stresses at the surface of work-piece material.