Deep hole drilling of large-diameter titanium alloy with a novel rotary low-frequency vibration device

Titanium alloy (Ti) has been widely used in aerospace industry due to excellent mechanical properties and the demands of Ti parts with a high length-to-diameter ratio and a large diameter are increasing. However, deep hole drilling of large-diameter Ti holes is usually both time-consuming and cost-consuming due to a series of problems such as unfavorable chip removal, helical structure on the hole surface, poor hole precision and severe tool wear. This paper reports on the cutting mechanism and experimental results of low-frequency vibration-assisted single-lip drilling (LFVASLD) of large-diameter Ti holes (17mm) for the first time. In this paper, a novel rotary low-frequency vibration device was developed and the vibration generation mechanism was analyzed. Thereafter, the material removal mechanism of LFVASLD was established. Then, the comparative experiments between LFVASLD and conventional single-lip drilling (CSLD) of Ti were conducted. The experimental results show that, compared with CSLD, LFVASLD can significantly prolong the drilling depth by 9 times due to reduced tool wear and alleviate helical structure on the hole surface due to the separated cutting mode. Furthermore, the influence of drilling parameters in LFVASLD on hole quality were also investigated. It is concluded that, the LFVASLD method is suitable for deep hole drilling of large-diameter titanium alloy and the developed rotary low-frequency vibration device can be used as a machine tool accessory to significantly improve the processing capacity in the industrial practice.