Novel hybrid machining process of titanium alloy for texturing high-quality microstructure array surfaces

Titanium alloys are widely applied in the aerospace field, such as nacelle and landing gear. As the typical difficult-to-machining materials, generating microstructure arrays with high quality on their surfaces still face a challenge. For solving this problem, this study proposes a novel hybrid machining process to texture microstructure arrays on titanium alloy surfaces. In this hybrid machining process, laser-assisted diamond turning is used to improve machinability by softening material surfaces, and slow-tool-servo cutting is used to generate various microstructure arrays. Experimental results showed the sine-shaped and honeycomb-shaped microstructure arrays were smoothly generated on the titanium alloy surfaces. The average machining error is lower than 3 %, which demonstrates the high machining accuracy of the hybrid machining process. The surface roughness (Sa) is lower than 30 nm, which demonstrates the high surface quality. Besides, the phase change and grain size are also in-detailed investigated to analyze the effects of the proposed hybrid machining process on the workpiece material. This study provides an efficient and flexible machining method to texture microstructure arrays on titanium alloy surfaces, which can be directly applied to surface modification of industrial production.