Title: Rotary Ultrasonic Machining of stainless steels: empirical study of machining variables

Authors: W.L. Cong, Z.J. Pei, Timothy Deines, Q.G. Wang, Clyde Treadwell

Addresses: Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, USA. ' Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, USA. ' Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, USA. ' Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Precision and Non-traditional Machining Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, Liaoning, China. ' Sonic-Mill, 7500 Bluewater Road NW, Albuquerque, NM 87121, USA

Abstract: Stainless steels have a variety of engineering applications and have been machined using many processes. The composite/steel stacks are used increasingly in new generations of aircraft industry, presenting new challenges in drilling holes in these stacks. It has been reported that Rotary Ultrasonic Machining (RUM) could drill composite materials effectively. The feasibility to use RUM to drill stainless steel was also reported. However, there is no report on systematic study on effects of different machining variables in RUM of stainless steel. This paper presents an experimental study on RUM of stainless steels. Cutting force, torque and surface roughness in RUM of stainless steels have been investigated using different machining variables (including spindle speed, feedrate and ultrasonic power). [Received 17 October 2009; Revised 9 February 2010; Accepted 1 March 2010]

Keywords: cutting force; drilling; RUM; rotary ultrasonic machining; stainless steel; surface roughness; torque; machining variables; spindle speed; feedrate; ultrasonic power.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMR.2010.033472

International Journal of Manufacturing Research, 2010 Vol.5 No.3, pp.370 - 386

Published online: 02 Jun 2010 *

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