Experimental Study of the Dynamic Behavior of Thin-Walled Tubular Workpieces in Turning Cutting Process

Nowadays, industrialists, especially those in the automobile and aeronautical transport fields, seek to lighten the weight of different product components by developing new materials lighter than those usually used or by replacing some massive parts with thin-walled hollow parts. This lightening operation is carried out in order to reduce the energy consumption of the manufactured products while guaranteeing optimal mechanical properties of the components and increasing quality and productivity. To achieve these objectives, some research centers have focused their work on the development and characterization of new light materials and some other centers have focused their work on the analysis and understanding of the encountered problems during the machining operation of thin-walled parts. Indeed, various studies have shown that the machining process of thin-walled parts differs from that of rigid parts. This difference comes from the dynamic behavior of the thin-walled parts which is different from that of the massive parts. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to first highlight some of these problems through the measurement and analysis of the cutting forces and vibrations of tubular parts with different thicknesses in AU4G1T351 aluminum alloy during the turning process. The experimental results highlight that the dynamic behavior of turning process is governed by large radial deformations of the thin-walled workpieces and the influence of this behavior on the variations of the chip thickness and cutting forces is assumed to be preponderant. The second objective is to provide manufacturers with a practical solution to the encountered vibration problems by improving the structural damping of thin-walled parts by additional damping. It is found that the additional structural damping increases the stability of the cutting process and reduces considerably the vibrations amplitudes.