Journal of Materials Processing Technology 209 (2009) 43854389

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Journal of Materials Processing Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jmatprotec

A comparative study of the cutting forces in high speed machining of Ti6Al4V

and Inconel 718 with a round cutting edge tool
N. Fang , Q. Wu
College of Engineering, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322-6000, USA

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Accepted 5 October 2008
Keywords:
High speed machining
Ti6Al4V
Inconel 718
Cutting forces
Round cutting edge tool

a b s t r a c t
Titanium alloy Ti6Al4V and nickel-based superalloy Inconel 718 have been widely employed in modern manufacturing. The published literature on high speed machining (HSM) of the two materials often
involves different machining set-up, which makes it difcult to directly apply the research ndings from
one material to the other to select the most appropriate tool geometry and cutting conditions. A comparative experimental study of HSM of Ti6Al4V and Inconel 718 is conducted in this paper using the same
machining set-up. The scope of this study is limited in high speed nish machining, where the tool edge
geometry plays a signicant role. The experimental set-up and the methods of measuring the cutting
forces and the tool edge radius are introduced. A total of 40 orthogonal high speed tube-cutting tests
were performed, involving ve levels of cutting speeds and four levels of feed rates. Based on extensive
experimental data, the similarities and differences between HSM of Ti6Al4V and Inconel 718 are quantitatively compared and qualitatively explained in terms of four quantities: (1) the cutting force Fc , (2)
the thrust force Ft , (3) the resultant force R, and (4) the force ratio Fc /Ft . A total of 12 empirical regression
relationships are obtained.
2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Among the most effective and efcient modern manufacturing
technologies, high speed machining (HSM) is employed to increase
productivity while simultaneously improving product quality and
reducing manufacturing costs. Depending on work and tool materials as well as tool life requirements, the cutting speed used in
HSM is often 250 times higher than those employed in traditional
(relatively low speed) machining. Due to its high material removal
rate and short product cycle time, HSM has received steadily growing applications in recent years in many industrial sectors, such
as defense, aerospace, aircraft, automotive, and die- and mouldmaking.
Research on HSM involves a wide variety of work materials ranging from easy-to-cut aluminum alloys (Schulz et al., 2001; Siems
et al., 2000) to difcult-to-cut hardened steels (Quan et al., 2004;
Behrens et al., 2004) and advanced aerospace materials (Ezugwu
and Bonney, 2003). Among advanced aerospace materials, two have
been extensively studied: titanium alloy Ti6Al4V (Su et al., 2006;
Molinari et al., 2002; Baker et al., 2002; Komanduri and Hou, 2002;
Barry et al., 2001; Bayoumi and Xie, 1995) and nickel-based superalloy Inconel 718 (Nalbant et al., 2007; Ezugwu et al., 2005; Dudzinski

Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 4357972948; fax: +1 4357972567.

E-mail address: nfang@engineering.usu.edu (N. Fang).
0924-0136/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2008.10.013

and Devillez, 2004; Coelho et al., 2004; Narutaki and Yamane, 1993).
Due to their exceptionally high strength-to-weight ratio, excellent
mechanical properties (especially high temperature performance),
and superior corrosion resistance, Ti6Al4V and Inconel 718 have
received growing applications in making critical parts, components,
and structures. For example, titanium alloy components make up
2030% of the dry weight in a jet engine. However, because of
their high strength and low thermal conductivity (Nabhani, 2001;
Arunachalam and Mannan, 2000), HSM of these two materials often
cause numerous problems in modern manufacturing.
The published literature undoubtedly advances the fundamental
understanding of various aspects of HSM processes. However, little literature is available to compare HSM of Ti6Al4V and Inconel
718 while keeping all the other machining set-up (such as the cutting conditions, tool geometry, and tool material) the same. The vast
majority of the published literature focuses on either Ti6Al4V (Su
et al., 2006; Molinari et al., 2002; Baker et al., 2002; Komanduri and
Hou, 2002; Barry et al., 2001; Bayoumi and Xie, 1995) or Inconel 718
(Nalbant et al., 2007; Ezugwu et al., 2005; Dudzinski and Devillez,
2004; Coelho et al., 2004; Narutaki and Yamane, 1993) alone, often
involving different machining set-up. The research ndings from
HSM of one material might not be directly applicable to HSM of the
other material. A comparative study that uses the same machining set-up not only improves the scientic understanding of the
effect of different aerospace materials in HSM, but also makes it
feasible to extend the research ndings from one material to the

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N. Fang, Q. Wu / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 209 (2009) 43854389

other so as to select the most appropriate tool geometry and cutting

conditions.
Moreover, HSM is signicantly different from traditional
machining in many aspects, such as the mechanism of chip formation and the generation of cutting forces and temperatures. The
tool cutting edge in HSM is subjected to extremely high mechanical
and thermal loads. The failure of the tool edge (such as severe plastic deformation, severe wear, and breakage) often results in early
tool failure. Compared to extensive study on the tool edge preparation in traditional machining and other machining processes (Liu et
al., 2007; Fang and Wu, 2005; Fang, 2003; Shirakashi and Obikawa,
1998; Roth and Oxley, 1972; Usui and Hoshi, 1963; Albrecht, 1960),
research on how the tool cutting edge affects HSM processes lacks
largely behind.
To address the two above-described issues, this paper conducts
a comparative study of HSM of both Ti6Al4V and Inconel 718,
while simultaneously taking into account the effect of tool edge
geometry as well. The scope of the study is limited in high speed
nish machining, where small feed rates that are on the same order
of magnitude as the tool edge dimension are commonly used. As
the rst step of our ongoing systematic study, the cutting forces
are employed in this paper as the major criterion for comparison. The cutting forces signicantly affect the cutting temperatures,
tool wear and tool life, machining dynamics, the machined surface
integrity, and so on.
An experimental approach is taken in this study. First, the experimental set-up and the methods of measuring the cutting forces and
the tool edge radius are introduced. Then, similarities and differences between HSM of Ti6Al4V and Inconel 718 are quantitatively
compared and qualitatively explained in terms of four force-related
quantities: (1) the cutting force Fc , (2) the thrust force Ft , (3) the
resultant force R, and (4) the ratio Fc /Ft of the cutting force to the
thrust force. Next, a total of 12 empirical regression relationships
are obtained using extensive experimental data. Finally, the major
research ndings made from this study are summarized.
2. Experimental set-up and methods of measurements
2.1. Experimental set-up
Table 1 summarizes the experimental set-up, where a total of 40
orthogonal high speed tube-cutting experiments were performed
on a CNC turning center (HAAS SL-10). The cutting experiments
involved Ti6Al4V and Inconel 718, coated carbide tools, ve levels
of cutting speeds, and four levels of feed rates. No cutting uids or
coolants were employed in order to facilitate the collection of the
cutting force data.
As shown in Table 1, the employed cutting speeds
(58174 m/min) were at least two times higher than those
used in traditional machining of the two work materials. Small
feed rates (0.0750.12 mm/r) comparable to the magnitude of tool

Table 2
Chemical composition (%) of Ti6Al4V.
Element
C
Al
Fe
V
Ti

%
<0.08
5.56.75
<0.4
3.54.5

Element
V
N
H
O

3.54.5
<0.05
<0.01
<0.2
Balance

Table 3
Chemical composition (%) of Inconel 718.
Element
C
Ni
Cr
Nb
Mo
Ti

%
0.08
5055
1721
4.755.5
2.83.3
0.651.15

Element
Co
Al
Si
Mn
Cu
Fe

Work material (tube)

Tube outer diameter
Tube wall thickness

2.2. Methods of measurements

As shown in Fig. 1, the tool edge radius was measured using a
Mitutoyo type-SV602 ne contour measuring instrument, which
was equipped with a diamond stylus with the tip radius of 5 m.
The tip radius of the diamond stylus was taken into account when
measuring the tool edge geometry. The portion of the tool edge
that had the most uniform distribution of edge radius (which was
0.06 mm) was employed in the cutting tests. The tool edge geometry
was measured again after each cutting experiment to ensure that
no signicant tool-edge wear (i.e., the wear of the tool cutting edge
before it is fully worn away (Wu and Fang, 2006)) had occurred, so
the experimental results were comparable.
The cutting forces were measured with a Kistler 9257B threecomponent dynamometer, a Kistler 5814B1 multi-channel charge
amplier, and a computer data acquisition system (Labview). The
measurement system frequency was far more than two times than
the frequency of the cutting forces. The sampling frequency was
1 kHz. An analog anti-alias lter was used. After the force signals
were collected from the dynamometer, MATLAB was employed to

Tool insert
Tool material
Tool working rake angle
Tool edge radius
Cutting speed
Feed rate

Value
Ti6Al4V and Inconel 718
50 mm
1.4 mm for Ti6Al4V
1.2 mm for Inconel 718
TPG 432 (Kennametal Inc.)
Cemented carbide (KC 8050) with TiC/TiN/TiCN
coating
5
0.06 mm
58, 87, 116, 144, 174 m/min
0.075, 0.09, 0.105, 0.12 mm/r

%
1.0
0.20.8
0.35
0.35
0.3
Balance

edge radius (0.06 mm) were used. All feed rates were at least 10
times smaller than the width of cut (i.e., the wall thickness of the
workpiece tube) to ensure plane-strain deformation conditions in
orthogonal cutting.
Tables 2 and 3 show the chemical compositions of the two work
materials tested in this study. As seen, Inconel 718 contains a signicant amount of Ni and Cr.

Table 1
Experimental set-up.
Category

Fig. 1. The measurement of tool-edge radius.

N. Fang, Q. Wu / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 209 (2009) 43854389

4387

lter the high-frequency noise signal. The digital lter employed in

MATLAB was Butter (1, 0.015).
For each work material, 20 cutting experiments were conducted.
Most cutting tests were repeated three times, with the variation of
measurements generally within 5% range. The average value of the
cutting force measurements was taken as the experimental data.
3. Comparative study of the experimental results
3.1. Force components: the cutting and thrust forces
To make the results comparable, normalized cutting forces
(N/mm) the cutting forces along an unit width of cut (w) are
employed. Furthermore, the scales of axes in relevant gures are
kept the same when plotting relationships between relevant quantities.
Figs. 2 and 3 show the variations of the normalized cutting force
Fc /w and thrust force Ft /w with the cutting conditions (i.e., the cutting speed and the feed rate) for each work material. From these two
gures, the similarities and differences in machining Ti6Al4V and
Inconel 718 are observed and compared as follows:
(1) For both materials: either an increase in cutting speeds or a
decrease in feed rates causes a decrease in both the cutting force
and the thrust force. These varying trends are consistent with
what occurs in traditional (relatively low speed) machining. For
example, an increase in cutting speeds increases the cutting
temperatures and hence reduces the cutting forces.
(2) Under the same cutting conditions, the cutting force and the
thrust force in machining Inconel 718 are higher than those in

Fig. 3. The thrust force vs. the cutting conditions: (a) Ti6Al4V and (b) Inconel 718.

machining Ti6Al4V. This phenomenon is under expectation

because Inconel 718 has higher strength than does Ti6Al4V.
The typical shear strength is 860 MPa for Inconel 718 and
550 MPa for Ti6Al4V (Ezugwu and Bonney, 2003).
(3) The variation of the thrust force with the feed rate is smaller
in machining Ti6Al4V than that in machining Inconel 718,
especially at the lower cutting speeds as clearly shown in Fig. 3.
This phenomenon can be explained from the effect of tool edge
radius in machining as well as the interactions among tool edge
geometry, cutting conditions, and work material constitutive
behavior. The recent work (Fang, 2003) shows that the tool edge
radius signicantly affects the thrust force. The cutting forces
can be analytically predicted based on the given tool geometry,
cutting conditions, and a work material constitutive model. The
quantitative predictive modeling of the cutting forces is beyond
the scope of this study.
3.2. The resultant force
Fig. 4 shows the variation of the normalized resultant force R/w
with the cutting conditions for each work material. As seen from
the gure, the resultant force decreases with increasing cutting
speeds or with decreasing feed rates for both materials. However,
the resultant force in machining Inconel 718 is higher than that in
machining Ti6Al4V. Again, this is because Inconel 718 has higher
shear strength than does Ti6Al4V.
3.3. The force ratio
Fig. 2. The cutting force vs. the cutting conditions: (a) Ti6Al4V and (b) Inconel
718.

The force ratio Fc /Ft determines the direction of the resultant

force and hence affects the machining vibrations, tool wear, and

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N. Fang, Q. Wu / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 209 (2009) 43854389

The thrust force Ft can be calculated as

Ft
Ft

Ti64

= 103.02 Vc 0.257 f 0.127 w

In718

= 10

3.41

Vc

0.216 0.495

(3)

(4)

The resultant force R can be calculated as

RTi64 = 103.44 Vc 0.202 f 0.483 w
RIn718 = 10

3.80

Vc

0.175 0.746

(5)

(6)

The force ratio Fc /Ft can be determined as

Fc
Fc

Ti64 /Ft Ti64

= 100.508 Vc 0.101 f 0.657

In718 /Ft In718

= 10

0.394

Vc

0.0635 0.400

(7)
(8)

The R2 values (the coefcient of determination) for Eqs. (1)(8)

are 0.977, 0.992, 0.810, 0.968, 0.930, 0.990, 0.897, 0.939, respectively. These equations represent reasonably good ts with the
experimental data.
From the positive or negative exponents of the cutting speed
Vc and the feed rate f in the above equations, two common varying trends in machining the two materials can be found. The two
common trends, which are also in consistent with the observations
made from Figs. 2 to 5, are described as follows:
(1) As the cutting speed increases, the cutting force, the thrust
force, and the result force all decrease (Eqs. (1)(6)); however,
the force ratio increases (Eqs. (7) and (8)).
(2) As the feed rate increases, all the four force-related quantities
increase (Eqs. (1)(8)).

Fig. 4. The resultant force vs. the cutting conditions: (a) Ti6Al4V and (b) Inconel
718.

machined surface integrity. Fig. 5 shows the variation of the force

ratio with the cutting conditions for each work material.
It can be seen from Fig. 5 that for both materials, the force ratio
increases as increasing cutting speeds or feed rates. This varying
trend is very consistent for both Ti6Al4V (Fig. 5a) and Inconel
718 (Fig. 5b) under the employed cutting conditions.
A particular observation made from Fig. 5a is that at the small
feed rate of 0.075 mm when machining Ti6Al4V, the cutting force
ratio Fc /Ft can be less than 1.0, which means the cutting force Fc is
less than the thrust force Ft . This unique phenomenon is due to
the magnied effect of the tool edge radius (Fang, 2003) under the
small feed rate conditions. Work material properties also play a role
in affecting the value of Fc /Ft .
4. Empirical regression relationships
4.1. Determination of the cutting forces
The experimental data included in Figs. 25 was further used to
generate a set of empirical regression equations to quantitatively
relate the cutting conditions to the four force-related quantities.
The generated regression equations are listed in the following paragraphs, where the subscripts Ti64 and In718 represent Ti6Al4V
and Inconel 718, respectively.
The cutting force Fc can be determined as
= 103.52 Vc 0.155 f 0.784 w

Fc

Ti64

Fc

In718

= 103.81 Vc 0.153 f 0.894 w

(1)
(2)

Fig. 5. The force ratio vs. the cutting conditions: (a) Ti6Al4V and (b) Inconel 718.

N. Fang, Q. Wu / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 209 (2009) 43854389

4389

4.2. Comparison of the cutting forces

References

To quantitatively study how higher the cutting forces are in

machining Inconel 718 than those in machining Ti6Al4V, Eqs.
(1)(8) are further employed to derive the following relationships:

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Fc
Ft

In718 /Fc Ti64

In718 /Ft Ti64

= 100.29 Vc 0.002 f 0.110

= 10

RIn718 /RTi64 = 10
Fc In718 /Ft
Fc Ti64 /Ft

In718
Ti64

0.39

0.36

Vc

Vc

0.041 0.368

0.027 0.0263

= 100.114 Vc 0.0357 f 0.257

(9)
(10)
(11)
(12)

Eqs. (9)(12) reveal that the cutting forces and the force ratio are
governed not only by work materials, but also by the interactions
among work materials, the cutting speed, and the feed rate.
5. Conclusions
A comparative experimental study of high speed machining of
two major aerospace materials titanium alloy Ti6Al4V and
Inconel 718 has been performed. Based on extensive experimental data generated from 40 orthogonal high speed tube-cutting
tests that involved ve levels of cutting speeds and four levels of feed rates for each work material, the similarities and
differences in machining the two materials are summarized as
follows:
(1) For both materials: as the cutting speed increases, the cutting
force, the thrust force, and the result force all decrease; however,
the force ratio increases.
(2) For both materials: as the feed rate increases, the cutting force,
the thrust force, the result force, as well as the force ratio all
increase.
(3) Under the same cutting conditions, the cutting force and the
thrust force in machining Inconel 718 are higher than those in
machining Ti6Al4V.
(4) The variation of the thrust force with the feed rate is smaller
in machining Ti6Al4V than that in machining Inconel 718,
especially at the lower cutting speeds.
In the nal analysis, the cutting forces in machining Ti6Al4V
and Inconel 718 are governed by the interactions among work materials, tool geometry, and the cutting conditions.
Acknowledgement
The support of this study by the U.S. National Science Foundation
under Grant No. 0620792 is greatly appreciated.