A Novel Method for Tool Wear Prediction in Titanium Milling by Simulink Feedback Method

Titanium alloy Ti6Al4V is widely used in the aviation and aerospace industry. However, this material is typically difficult-to-machine due to its intrinsic characteristics, such as poor thermal conductivity, high strength at elevated temperature, etc. A novel method is proposed to predict tool wear in machining of the titanium alloy. In this method, a thermo-mechanically-coupled tool wear model, consisting of abrasion, adhesion and diffusion mechanisms, is implemented in the Simulink software. The geometric features of a worn-tool are updated at different wear stages in the simulation. Tool wear prediction is conducted and validated by milling experiments under various milling conditions. The results show that the proposed method can well predict the extent of the tool flank wear, and the relative error between the experimental and the prediction results is within 22%. This study offers a guidance to the determination of tool life and optimization of process parameters in a machining process.