Experimental and FEM study of surface formation and deformation mechanism of SiCp/Al composites in laser-ultrasonic vibration assisted turning

To improve the processibility of high-volume fraction SiCp/Al composites and reduce the surface defects after machining, a machining method of laser-ultrasonic vibration assisted machining (L-UVAM) were presented in this paper. Aiming to study the mechanism of material deformation and surface formation in L-UVAM, a finite element model (FEM) of L-UVAM was developed and the corresponding experiments were conducted. The results combined simulation and experiments revealed that particle fracture, interface failure and crack propagation were the main forms of material deformation, and the support of the matrix for particles was weakened because of the softening effect caused by laser heating, which makes it easier for the tool to push particles distribution along the shear plane. In addition, the failure of the particles depended on its relative position to the tool. Compared with traditional machining, the surface quality of L-UVAM was better, and there were fewer broken particles and defects in the processed surface. The results obtained by simulation are in close agreement with cutting experiments. Therefore, L-UVAM can be applied in efficient machining of SiCp/Al composites.