Characteristic of surface profile and roughness in micro turn-milling of aluminum alloy 2A12

Micro turn-milling is a new prospective technology for the precision machining of micro/meso scale rotationally symmetrical workpieces. Micro orthogonal turn-milling experiments were carried out on aluminum alloy 2A12 with high speed steel end mill in miniature turn-milling machine tool. The characteristic of surface profile were investigated using numerical characteristic parameters and mathematical statistics functions such as amplitude density function(ADF) and power spectral density(PSD). The relationship between surface roughness and cutting conditions such as machining strategy and cutting regime was established in orthogonal test and auto regression analysis. The results show that the characteristic of surface profile of up turn-milling is better than that of down turn-milling in general, the surface spatial frequency component within both of the machining strategy are deteriorated to some extent because of the irregular contact between end mill and workpiece caused by the elasticity deformation in micro turn-milling process. The surface roughness of micro turn-milling is close to micro turning and the influence of machining regime on the surface roughness is not very significant. From this perspective, the process parameters of micro turn-milling can be selected in a wide range.