Microstructure evolution modeling of Ti6Al4V alloy during cutting using the Particle Finite Element Method and homogeneous field distributions

This paper aims to explore the evolution of microstructural parameters induced during the cutting of Ti6Al4V alloy (TC4). The microstructure characteristics of the workpiece material is directly tied to its mechanical response during machining. During TC4 cutting, microstructure evolution is observed as a result of severe plastic deformations. The characterization of this phenomenon has significant interest from both academia and industry. In this work we present a developed modeling technique which combines the Particle Finite Element Method (PFEM) with incremental homogeneous field distributions. First, the PFEM is extended to perform a thermo-mechanical analysis capable of capturing the material responses of TC4 during orthogonal cutting. To generate serrated chips, an appropriate strain softening-based constitutive plasticity model i.e., TANH (Hyperbolic TANgent) is utilized. The PFEM’s validity is checked through comparison with available experimental results in terms of chip shapes and cutting forces. Second, the evolution of microstructural parameters such as dislocation density, vacancy concentration, dynamic recrystallization (DRx) grain size, and hardness is incrementally developed and incorporated into the PFEM using internal state variables as homogeneous field distributions. The Johnson–Mehl–Avrami–Kolmogorov (JMAK) model and Hall–Petch equation are applied for predicting grain size and hardness, respectively. The parameters of the corresponding models are modified for TC4 to accurately capture their alterations. Lastly, the predicted results of the microstructure evolution in serrated chips and machined surfaces, including average grain size and hardness, are compared with experiments, demonstrating good agreement. This implies that the PFEM combined with microscale schemes can reliably simulate the machining process of the TC4.