Study on Machining Quality of Aluminum Honeycomb in Ultrasonic Cutting by Disc Cutter

Aluminum honeycomb has been highlighted in aeronautics and astronautics in the form of the sandwich structure, but defects are easily generated during machining. Ultrasonic cutting for honeycomb material has received growing attention over the past years for improved machining quality and efficiency. In order to support the industrial application of the ultrasonic cutting for aluminum honeycomb by disc cutter, a finite element (FE) model is established and experimental investigations are conducted to study the influencing factors of the machining quality. The proposed FE model is verified by the comparison of cutting forces obtained from simulations and experiments. Based on the FE model and experiments, influences of tool orientation precisions, including lead angle and runout of disc cutter, are analyzed first. Moreover, cutting force, honeycomb morphology, the stress in the cutting zone, and cell wall deformation at different cutting parameters are investigated. Results show that the lead angle should be set as a slightly positive value, and the axial runout of the disc cutter should be controlled to an extremely small value to avoid machining defects. Meanwhile, the cutting forces decrease significantly with the application of the ultrasonic vibration and increase with the increases in the feed speed and the cutting depth. Therefore, a well-machined surface can be obtained by applying ultrasonic vibration, cutting at a lower feed speed, and a smaller cutting depth.