Experimental Comparison of Flow Peening Gov and Abrasive Flow Machining AFM Processes on Ti-6Al Aviation Material

Abstract

Ti-6Al-4V finds place from aerospace applications to medical industry due to its superior mechanical features such as high strength, low density, high temperature strength and excellent corrosion resistance. Despite its wide usage applications such as aircraft turbine blades, aircraft structural components and rocket engines, it is a difficult material to machine, manufacture and surface treatment with traditional methods. Non-traditional finishing and surface treatment methods namely abrasive flow machining (AFM) and shot peening processes are applied to obtain desired surface quality for Ti-6Al-4V and difficult to cut materials. The newly developed flow peening (GOV) process, which has the surface finishing capability of the AFM and the compressive residual stress generation capability of the shot peening process together, has been experimentally compared in Ti-6Al-4V workpieces pre -prepared by wire electric discharge cutting machine. The effects of GOV and AFM process parameters on material surfaces were investigated to evaluate the surface roughness, surface quality, material removal amount and white layer thickness. The best surface roughness value, R a was obtained 0.92 g m and the highest amount of chip removed from the surface was 3.6 mg by GOV process while these values were 0.53 g m and 1989.15 mg by AFM. While the GOV process improves the surface quality by removing less amount of chip, the AFM process reaches approximate surface quality of GOV process by removing excess chip.