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Design and Fabrication of Aluminum 356 Workpiece to Provide Complex Interrupted Cutting in Drilling and Face Milling Operations

Company: Quaker Houghton

Major(s):
Primary: IE
Secondary: ME
Optional: MATSE

Non-Disclosure Agreement: YES

Intellectual Property: YES

Aluminum 356 is generally used for aerospace and automotive applications due to its high strength nature. The material can be difficult to machine and can cause issues with formation of burrs, tool wear and surface finish. Machining aluminum 356 parts of more complexity in which require large amounts of discontinuous cutting often significantly increase the challenges with machining. This project aims to design, fabricate, and validate the construction of an aluminum 356 test part that offers the same types of machining challenges that are present in the machining of a transmission valve body. The two different machining operations that will have to be used once the workpiece is designed and fabricated will include top face milling and drilling. Conditions and tooling will be picked by the team. Deliverables: 1. Design aluminum 356 test piece which provides significant discontinuous cutting conditions in subsequent drilling and face milling operations. 2. Provide Cadcam schematics and G-code required for construction of the test piece. 3. Validate test piece in actual face milling and drilling operations. 4. Develop quantitative measures of machining output which includes quantification of burr formation, surface scratches, drilled hole dimensional accuracy, and tool wear.