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titanium machined Lidar device part

How To Improve the Titanium Machining Technology?

Titanium offers a unique property due to stiffness, outstanding corrosion resistance, toughness, low density, and excellent corrosion resistance. People who have seen a lathe machine or machining center know that cutting titanium sets complex machining demands. Titanium has several properties that make it a popular choice for aerospace and medical tools, but the same features may cause nervous breakdowns for machine operators. Using the right blend of application knowledge and tooling can help you correctly machine even the gnarliest titanium. Today, we will discuss the most important tips to keep in mind whenever you are titanium CNC machining.

Titanium CNC Machining

So, why is matching titanium a challenge?

Titanium has metallurgical characteristics and properties that make machining more challenging than other metals like cast iron and stainless steel. Titanium is an insulator by nature, the heat during machining stays near the cutting machine, blunting the tool, which creates more heat, and the process continues until the device fails. Another factor that makes titanium difficult for machining is that it is prone to work hardening. As titanium is cut, it becomes hard and even more abrasive to tooling. These are some of the challenges while machining titanium.

What are different types of titanium alloys?

Titanium alloys are known as a mixture of titanium and other elements. These alloys have very high tensile strength and toughness. Titanium is mixed with other parts to provide additional strength, flexibility, and malleability. Titanium alloys are used as various components like turbine blades and bio-materials. Different Titanium alloys come with their own unique set of properties and features.

Here are different types of Titanium alloys:

Pure titanium – Pure titanium is the easiest type of titanium with no alloying elements.

Alpha alloys – Alpha titanium alloys contain aluminum, oxygen, and/or nitrogen.

Beta alloys – Beta titanium alloys contain molybdenum, iron, vanadium, chromium, and manganese.

Mixed alloy – This is the mix of both alpha and beta Titanium alloys.

A glance at the evolution of Titanium Machining:

Around 15 years ago, titanium machining was a challenging and nasty job. Back then, titanium manufacturers were cutting blind and manufacturing parts through trial and error methods. Using hard metal techniques resulted in a costly process, demanded constant monitoring, and produced unpredictable outcomes. Today, end mills have perfect grinds and well-engineered geometries that manufacturers can cut hard materials like titanium without chipping or breaking tools.

Additionally, an adaptive tool from CAM software helps in achieving the steady and productive cutting of material. Another transformation in Titanium CNC machining is additive manufacturing technology, due to which high-torque is no longer required for rough milling, leaving only finishing operations for conventional machines.

titanium machined Lidar device part

Here are some tips for Titanium CNC machining:

Eliminate primary failure modes

 Choose a rake cutting tool with a rigid substrate and hard coating to avoid overheating. Also, a small T-land on the device’s cutting edge can help improve the tool’s functioning. However, avoid overdoing it as titanium is challenging and needs a sharp instrument.

Push the heat into the chip 

During machining Titanium, the low thermal conductivity traps heat that wreaks havoc on cutting tools. If your machine can handle the additional load, increase the feed rate to push some of the heat into the chip to make the machining tools last longer.

Increase coolant concentration

When cutting titanium, you need to maintain the copious flow of clean cutting fluid. To achieve this, increase the coolant concentration to 10 percent or more. Next, install a high-pressure pump of at least 500 psi to blast chips. Always, always use coolant-fed cutting tools to avoid catastrophic re-cutting of chips.

Choose the right tool

Invest in a high-performance machine tool if you want to achieve success in machining titanium. The high speed of the device can accelerate a chemical reaction between the chip and the tool material. Also, keep in mind that the tool should have good hardness and not react with titanium.

Be strategic

Plan and optimize the titanium machined parts process in advance. Analyze all of the part features, tall and thin walls, and hard-to-machine parts. Choose the right cutters, set the correct feeds and speeds, and generate code that meets the requirement analyzed before.

Titanium machining is not an easy task, but the material properties and usage mean that it is here to stay. As the use of titanium and its alloys continue to grow, more machinists will be dealing with titanium milling in the coming years. All you need to create a perfect blend of heat management, appropriate chip evacuation, correct coating to ensure success in machining titanium parts.

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What Are Difference between Titanium Machining and Aluminum Machining?

To carry out a machining process, it is necessary to know the physical characteristics of the material to be machined, which are important when selecting tools, cutting angles, speeds, among other parameters. Only in this way can we maximize production efficiency. Obviously aluminum is much harder than titanium. Some important aspects of both aluminum machining and titanium machining are described below.

Aluminum CNC Machining

Relatively little energy is required to aluminum machining, since to achieve cutting of the material thanks to its mechanical characteristics, it uses a third of the energy compared to the energy used in the machining of steel. CNC aluminum machining can be achieved with high speeds and removal rates without generating excessive stresses between the material and the cutting tool. High machining speed means higher productivity and better surface finishes.

  • The process tips

To aluminum machining it is required that the tool have certain special characteristics, it is desirable that the cutting tools used for this type of materials allow the efficient evacuation of the material to avoid dulling that can ruin the part and the cutting tool, as well as the rake angles should be greater than those used to machine steels. Thanks to the high thermal conductivity of aluminum, the cooling process of the cutting tool does not require too much cooling liquid flow, just enough to evacuate loose material.In the market there are a variety of cutting tools with different properties and costs. For the machining processes of aluminum machining, like steel, it is desirable that the tools are very efficient and durable over time.

  • The option of cutting tool

Thanks to technological advances, it is possible to find tools with hard coatings such as DLC (diamond like carbon – carbon like diamond), which provide hardness and tribological properties to the tool, up to complex coating processes such as PVD (vapor deposition) treatments. , with which titanium nitride coatings capable of protecting the tool with superficial layers with titanium are achieved. Some materials for cutting tools for aluminum machining are:

  • High speed steels are special high performance steels with high hardness up to 500 ºC and high resistance to wear thanks to alloying elements such as tungsten, molybdenum, vanadium and chromium, capable of forming carbides. Cobalt is added to increase hardness. HSS tools are suitable for machining low-silicon aluminum alloys. Supports the use of large rake angles for better cutting conditions.
  • Carbide is a mixture of tungsten carbide and cobalt (CW + Co). This coating provides a longer tool life. They are used in the machining of aluminum with high silicon content and for machining at high cutting speeds.

Titanium CNC Machining

Titanium machining is always a challenge. This is mainly due to the fact that it is an abrasive and cut resistant metal. If we add to this its poor thermal conductivity, machining strategies become a critical aspect when approaching each part to be machined.

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  • The process tips

When CNC titanium machining part, you must carefully monitor the amount of material to remove, as well as the advances. A large pass at a high advance will cause great stresses in the machine and an increase in the temperature of the piece. In addition, as a result of the efforts and because it is a ductile material, it is also very possible that deformations appear in the final piece. We must not lose sight of the fact that this ductility can generate vibrations during the machining of the part. Ultimately it is about weighing toughness and cut resistance. The tools used for titanium machining parts are characterized by an important edge. This is to overcome the ductility of the material. Likewise, since it is an abrasive material that accumulates a lot of heat, the tools used to machine titanium have coatings that give them greater durability.

  • The challenge you may meet

Of all the operations in titanium machining, the most complex is threading. External threading can be done using special tools or by using the vortex. On internal threads, especially small diameter threads, chip removal is critical. It must be avoided that it sticks to the edge of the tool, due to the risk of breaking the tap inside the hole to be threaded. The machining of titanium parts is usually demanded in industries such as aerospace, mainly for its weight and resistance.

Above all, you can see that aluminum machining is much easier than titanium machining ,thus ,there is a big difference on cost . In the end, it is necessary to decide which material to use according to the mechanical properties of the product and the design requirements.

Titanium Machining

Outstanding Titanium Machining Services From UYEE

Titanium is a very versatile material and is used in many cases for quite specific tasks, thanks to its incredible characteristics .The manufacture of any object, piece or product is made from certain materials, these can vary greatly, and are chosen according to the ideal characteristics that they may have for each of the functions that they will fulfill in the future. Plastics and metals are always the materials that abound in terms of the manufacture of parts or whole products, and it seems that they are the most common in any industry .To treat the plastic and give it shape, multiple processes are used, and most of these are related to changing the physical state of this material making it moldable, in this way they can convert it into whatever it is.

How To Work With Titanium ?

But, when it comes to metals, the processes change a bit, since many of these must be in a solid state to be able to manipulate them and turn them into something else. On the scale of metals for manufacturing parts is titanium, which shows that it needs certain specific processes to work it. It must be remembered that titanium is a not very dense metal that presents a great opposition to various materials, so the strategies that are developed to treat this metal must be precise and very well studied, and machining is one of the best options they exist for titanium.

1) Experience

Titanium CNC machining is a group of techniques that have been developed over time to be able to treat this material adequately, because although there is not an exaggerated number of companies that take advantage of its functions, there are those who require their services in a great way .The aerospace industry is the ideal candidate for the use of the emblematic characteristics of titanium since both its resistance to corrosion, damage, high temperatures and also to shocks, make it the main material for any of its constructions.

Titanium Machining

 

    2 ) Focus On Details

Titanium is subjected to various processes to achieve the precision of the parts that will be created from it, so both turning and milling are essential to carry out titanium machining. During the turning process, the part rotates supported by a base, this in order that, during the milling moment, the combination of movements can reach all the parts of the part with precision. On the other hand, during titanium milling, the machine is in charge of making all the necessary cuts in the piece so that it takes its final shape quickly. This is a simple and fast process, which manages to turn a piece of titanium into an object that will be part of something else.

   3) Expertise

As we said before, processing titanium is not a task for everyone, you have to have the precise strategy, but you also need to have the correct materials to achieve the creation of the piece. In this case, we are talking specifically about the tools that will be present during CNC machining. Manufacturers had to find a material that was capable of cutting titanium, yet was delicate enough not to ruin the geometry of the part. That is how they decided to use tools that were very resistant to wear, that were very hard, it is also important that the machine is rigid and that all the tools involved in the process are very sharp, so the cut would be achieved quickly and without errors.

Why Choose Our Titanium Machining Services ?

Nowadays it is difficult to find the ideal manufacturers to carry out the construction of certain titanium machined parts, and it is that to manipulate this material precision and intelligence are required .The right tools are also needed so that machining can be carried out without problems, being efficient and accurate, since any errors that may arise will always be noticed on a large scale.

Luckily for everyone, there is UYEE, the manufacturers that offer the best titanium machining services in the industry. At UYEE there are multiple processes to offer the highest quality custom titanium parts  for all clients from all over the world. So it is common to observe how different processes are carried out to achieve perfection. Our operators must have at least 5 years of industry manufacturing experience and expertise, and at the same time, they must have a certain grasp and understanding of the mechanical processing properties of titanium alloy materials,that is why we are more professional comparing to other suppliers .

Conclusion

Machining titanium is not an easy task ,it’s harder a lot than stainless steel material.And it will be a big loss if the part can not be made successfully once due to titanium very expensive .So if you have some of important jobs which comes to titanium material ,but you are worried that your current partner can not help you to work with .Then,you should find a reliable and professional vendor. Please don’t hesitate to contact us for a quote or get some manufacturing suggestions if you are interested in our services ,we won’t let you down !