Experimental study of surface integrity of aluminum lithium alloy by face milling

Abstract

Aluminum lithium alloy will likely become the material of choice over composites as the fuselages of the next generation of narrow-body aircraft due to its high strength to weight ratio and excellent corrosion resistance. In this paper, aluminum lithium alloy samples are milled under air coolant condition and liquid nitrogen condition. Surface integrity factors including roughness and residual stress are measured. The results show that the angle between feed direction and rolling orientation dominates in the formation of surface finish, which is often neglected in previous study. The results also demonstrate the capacity of liquid nitrogen on improving the surface integrity followed by an increase of material removal rate in face milling of aluminum lithium alloy. Finally, the regression models for roughness and residual stress are established and the effectiveness of these models are validated. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.