1 Copyright © 2018 by ASME Proceedings of the 2018 Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference MSEC2018 June 18-22, 2018, College Station, TX, USA MSEC2018-6425 EDGE PROFILING OF TITANIUM ALLOYS AND ATTAINABLE SURFACE QUALITY Liu Kui Singapore Institute for Manufacturing Technology 73, Nanyang Drive, Singapore Salman Pervaiz Department of Mechanical Engineering, Rochester Institute of Technology, Dubai, UAE Vincent Shantha Kumar Department of Mechanical Engineering, BITS Pilani- Dubai Campus, UAE Ram Karthikeyan Department of Mechanical Engineering, BITS Pilani- Dubai Campus, UAE KEYWORDS Brushing, Abrasion, Deburring, Titanium ABSTRACT Machining operations such as reaming, boring or milling create undesirable extruded sharp edges at the entry and exit side of the machined holes. These sharp burrs / extruded edges act as stress concentration regions for fatigue crack propagation in safety critical aerospace components. In this paper, results of an experimental investigation carried out on surface integrity of titanium based alloy during mechanized edge profiling process are presented. In the Mechanized Edge Profiling (MEP) process the primary sharp edges created as result of hole machining are removed using a hard point countersink tool and the secondary sharp edges produced due to countersinking/chamfering the hole entry and exit side edges are radiused using nylon impregnated silicon carbide brushes. On-machine edge profiling experiments were conducted using compliant Flexhone TM and Novoflex TM globular abrasive brushes on highly stressed bolt/flange holes. Brushing speed and feed rate were identified as key process variables. Nylon impregnated with silicon carbide 320 grit brush showed good performance when brushing at a speed of 5000rpm and 5000mm/min feed rate which produced a very consistent and controlled secondary edge radius of 0.3±0.2mm up to 30 holes. An acceptable surface roughness (Ra) of less than 0.5μm on the chamfer and bore surfaces were achieved. INTRODUCTION Edge finishing is an important manufacturing process carried out on key aero engine components that operate under demanding conditions. Titanium based alloys are required to increase the operational efficiency of gas turbine engines and are material of choice for low and high-pressure compressor components. Due to their superior material properties, chip machining processes produce tough burr/edges that are still part of the parent material. class 5 burrs are commonly known as “extruded burrs” and are not actually burrs, but rather a deformation of extruded material caused by drilling. They appear as very large burrs that extrude from the base material. The extruded or displaced material requires preconditioning with a chamfer or carbide cutter to remove the material. The resulting sharp corners could act as stress raisers and deteriorate the surface integrity of the part thus affecting its fatigue life significantly [1-3]. Preconditioning will leave the residual sharp edge that is profiled with abrasive brushing. Hence, some form of edge profiling operation is often defined to mitigate these effects and such mitigation is highly critical in the aviation industry where part failure resulting in inflight shut down is a serious safety concern [4, 5]. Improving the performance of the tools and developing an automated process to profile the edges and defined edge modification are of considerable safety and economic importance to the aviation industry. Sathish Kannan 1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, American University of Sharjah, U.A.E 1 Contact Author