Tool vibration isolation in hard turning process with magnetorheological fluid damper

Abstract

Tool vibration in metal cutting significantly influences the surface finish and machining stability. Suppressing the tool vibration to enhance the finished product quality is the need of the hour. The current study proposes the augmentation of a Magnetorheological (MR) fluid damper to suppress tool vibration in hard tuning with easy installation without structural modification. The MR fluid damper changes its damping coefficient with the magnetic field to regulate variable cutting conditions. An optimal composition of MR fluid has been prepared in-house to be used in the damper. The in-house MR fluid is compared with commercial MR fluid. The comparison shows that in-house prepared MR fluid performs equally well compared to commercial fluid. The MR damper effectively damps high-amplitude vibration at aggressive cutting conditions. The L9 Taguchi design of the experiment opted to arrive at minimal machining parameters to evaluate the damper's performance in machining two workpiece materials, namely oil-hardened nickel steel (OHNS) and high carbon high chromium (HCHCR D2) die steel. The surface roughness and tool vibration are reduced with the damper. It is noted that in-house MR fluid performed equally well as commercial MR fluid. The tool wear study is also carried out to monitor the influence of external damping over tool life. The stability lobe diagram is obtained analytically with experimental validation to mark the stability limit of the machining condition. The stability boundary increases with the damper enabling aggressive cutting conditions. © 2023 The Society of Manufacturing Engineers