Advancing Machinability of Ti-6Al-4V Alloy: A Sustainable Integrated Approach

Titanium alloys are indispensable materials in numerous industries, including aerospace, medical, and dental fields. This prevalence is due to their unique properties, such as their high strength-to-weight ratio, corrosion resistance, low thermal expansion, and biocompatibility. On the other hand, the machinability of these materials faces a dual challenge: their low thermal conductivity, which confines heat within the cutting zone, and their chemical reactivity with the tool material. This work aims to explore and comprehensively evaluate the advancement in cooling and lubrication approaches that have been introduced to enhance the machinability of Ti-6Al-V alloys. Despite the numerous positive outcomes observed with recently employed techniques such as reduced friction, lowered temperatures, and prolonged tool life. These methods and techniques are either not accepted yet or limitedly accepted within the industry due to the inherent weaknesses and limitations of each technique. This work introduces a new integrated and sustainable concept that can surmount the challenges associated with previous approaches, aiming for more sustainable machining of Ti-6Al-4V alloys. The suggested integrated concept may overcome the lubrication, cooling, cost, and environmental problems of the recently used approaches.