Cutting conditions and surface integrity during dry plunge-milling of a wrought magnesium alloy

Plunge milling is a machining process used to remove material rapidly in roughing operations. It is known to offer significant increases in productivity as compared with conventional milling, especially in the case of deep milled workpieces. However, high productivity also entails the increase in machining conditions so it would be expected that plunge milling has more impact on surface integrity than conventional machining. In this study the authors consider the case of a dry plunge milling process applied to a wrought Mg-Zr-Zn-RE alloy. First, the study involves obtaining surfaces through experimental design. Second, plunge milling conditions are correlated with surface integrity factors, such as roughness, microstructure and microhardness. This study suggests plunge milling conditions to offer a trade-off between surface integrity and chip flow. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.