A review on conventional and nonconventional machining of Nickel-based Nimonic superalloy

Superalloys have gained prominence in recent years in various sectors, namely, spacecraft, marine, power, defense, vehicular and others, due to their ability to withstand high temperatures of up to 980 °C without deformation. Nimonics are Nickel-based superalloys usually known to be hard-to-machine materials due to their high strength at high temperatures, higher hardness, low thermal conductivity, and tendency to react with tool material. All these factors increase the level of difficulties in the machining of Nimonic superalloys. Numerous studies have examined various facets of machining of Nimonic alloys. This article summarizes the observation from 152 research articles to offer a reasonable engineering overview of the study of Nimonic alloys. An overview of Nimonic superalloys and their applications is given first. Then, various conventional and non-conventional machining processes, problems associated with multiple machining processes and methods to rectify the issues concerning the machining process have been reported. Thus, this summary will certainly help industrialists and academic researchers for further research work in machining Nimonic alloys.