Experimental investigation of the surface roughness in ultrasonic-assisted milling

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the surface roughness in the ultrasonic-assisted milling (UAM) process of AISI 1020 steel. High-frequency and low-amplitude vibrations are imposed on the workpiece by a special fixture developed by the present authors. With different values of feed rate, depth of cut, and cutting speed, the surface roughnesses in both conventional milling (CM) and UAM are obtained. The curves of the surface roughnesses in CM and UAM seem to be similar; both increase with increasing feed rate and increasing cutting speed, but the value for ultrasonic cutting is smaller under the same conditions. In both CM and UAM, the depth of cut does not have a considerable effect on the surface roughness. Experimental data show that UAM improves the surface roughness in comparison with CM by 12.9 per cent on average. The effect of ultrasonic vibration on the surface roughness decreases for high values of the feed rate, cutting depth, and cutting speed in comparison with that for the corresponding low values.