Experimental investigation on conventional grinding of Ti-6Al-4V using SiC abrasive

This paper investigates the machinability of Ti-6Al-4V in conventional surface grinding using silicon carbide abrasive which includes grinding force, specific grinding energy, surface topography, surface residual stress, and metallurgical structure alteration. The experimental result indicated that grinding force ratio and specific energy would decrease when chip formation played a dominant role in the mechanism of grinding. Workpiece ground surface was free of crack but cutting traces and micro-grooves on ground surface were much more obvious under higher feed rate. Chemical reactions and physical change existed in grinding of titanium alloys. Ground surface was in a state of high tensile residual stress under the effect of three mainly aspects: plastic deformation, microstructure transformation, and thermal cycling of surface layer which played the major role. The machined surface experienced microstructure alteration on the top layer of ground surface and a heat-affected zone was observed.