journal of materials processing technology 201 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 43–47 journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jmatprotec FEM analysis of ultrasonic-vibration-assisted turning and the vibratory tool S. Amini a , H. Soleimanimehr a , M.J. Nategh a,* , A. Abudollah b , M.H. Sadeghi a a Tarbiat Modares University, Faculty of Engineering, Mech. Eng. Department, Tehran, Iran b Amir Kabir University of Technology, Mech. Eng. Department, Tehran, Iran article info Keywords: Ultrasonic assisted turning Vibration IN738 Machining abstract Ultrasonic assisted turning (UAT) is an advanced method developed for machining tough and brittle materials such as supper-alloys, ceramics and glass. Using MSC-Marc and Ansys, the authors studied machining of IN738 with a tool vibrating at ultrasonic frequency. The machining forces and stresses acting on the workpiece during the process, and the effect of process parameters such as cutting speed, tool geometry and vibration amplitude were investigated. The authors also worked out the material and the optimum configuration of the vibratory tool being able to operate at an ultrasonic frequency within acceptable range. The results indicate that the forces and the stresses acting on the workpiece follow peri- odic changes during UAT and are augmented with an increase in the ultrasonic vibration amplitude or the cutting speed. The clearance angle has no significant effect on the magni- tude of the machining force, but higher forces are produced with smaller tool rake angles. Conical–cylindrical aluminum horns with concentrically attached tool insert deliver more satisfactory performance. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In ultrasonic assisted turning (UAT), or in a broader sense, in ultrasonic assisted machining (UAM) cutting tool is vibrated with constant ultrasonic frequency and amplitude during machining operations. It is an advanced method developed for machining tough and brittle materials such as supper- alloys, ceramics and glass. Pioneering work on this subject was carried out by Kumabe and co-workers (Kumabe and Masuko, 1958; Kumabe and Taniguchi, 1971; Kumabe, 1979). They illustrated that pulsed cutting has several advantages including lower cutting forces, more rapid heat removal and increase in tool life. Ultrasonic vibration is principally applied in one or two directions. Machining assisted by two directional ultrasonic vibration referred to elliptical ultra- sonic vibration leads to the added advantage of further ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: nategh@modares.ac.ir (M.J. Nategh). force reduction and better machining accuracy (Ma et al., 2004). Various aspects of UAM are currently subject to exten- sive investigations. The areas under investigation include the basic principles and mechanism of UAM; extending the appli- cation of UAM to other machining processes than turning such as drilling, milling, grinding, honing, lapping and electro- discharge machining; vibration control and stability analysis; the effect of tool geometry; hardware development such as autoresonant control to keep piezoelectric transducers at res- onant conditions under varying dynamic loads, and elliptical vibration transducers; and finite element analysis of UAM (Ya et al., 2002; Neugebauer and Stoll, 2004; Pei and Ferreira, 1999; Ichida et al., 2005; Zhu et al., 2002; Wang et al., 2002; Amer, 2007; Xiao et al., 2006; Babitsky et al., 2004; Li and Zhang, 2006; Ahmed et al., 2007; Mitrofanov et al., 2003). Among different 0924-0136/$ – see front matter © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2007.11.271