Date Available

5-24-2012

Year of Publication

2012

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

College

Engineering

Department/School/Program

Mechanical Engineering

First Advisor

Dr. I.S. Jawahir

Abstract

Surface integrity of manufactured components has a critical impact on their functional performance. Magnesium alloys are lightweight materials used in the transportation industry and are also emerging as a potential material for biodegradable medical implants. However, the unsatisfactory corrosion performance of Mg alloys limits their application to a great extent. Surface integrity factors, such as grain size, crystallographic orientation and residual stress, have been proved to remarkably influence the functional performance of magnesium alloys, including corrosion resistance, wear resistance and fatigue life.

In this dissertation, the influence of machining conditions, including dry and cryogenic cooling (liquid nitrogen was sprayed to the machined surface during machining), cutting edge radius, cutting speed and feed rate, on the surface integrity of AZ31B Mg alloy was investigated. Cryogenic machining led to the formation of a "featureless layer" on the machined surface where significant grain refinement from 12 μm to 31 nm occurred due to dynamic recrystallization (DRX), as well as increased intensity of basal plane on the surface and more compressive residual stresses. Dry and cryogenic burnishing experiments of the same material were conducted using a fixed roller setup. The thickness of the processed-influenced layer, where remarkable microstructural changes occurred, was dramatically increased from the maximum value of 20 μm during machining to 3.4 mm during burnishing. The burnishing process also produced a stronger basal texture on the surface than the machining process.

Preliminary corrosion tests were conducted to evaluate the corrosion performance of selected machined and burnished AZ31B Mg samples in 5% NaCl solution and simulated body fluid (SBF). Cryogenic cooling and large edge radius tools were found to significantly improve the corrosion performance of machined samples in both solutions. The largest improvement in the material's corrosion performance was achieved by burnishing.

A finite element study was conducted for machining of AZ31B Mg alloy and calibrated using the experimental data. A user subroutine was developed and incorporated to predict the grain size changes induced by machining. Good agreements between the predicted and measured grain size as well as thickness of featureless layers were achieved. Numerical studies were extended to include the influence of rake angle, feed rate and cutting speed on the featureless layer formation.

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