Titanium alloys are widely used in various fields, but their machinability is poor because the chip would easily adhere to the tool surface during cutting, causing poor surface quality and tool wear. To improve the cutting performance of titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V, experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of micro textured tool on the cutting performances. The cemented carbide tools whose rake faces were machined with line, rhombic, and sinusoidal groove textures with 10% area occupancy rates were adopted as the cutting tools. The effects of cutting depth and cutting speed on feed force and main cutting force were discussed based on experimental results. The results show that the cutting force produced by textured tools is less than that produced by non-textured tools. Under different cutting parameters, the best cutting performance can be obtained by using sinusoidal textured tools among the four types of tools. The wear of micro textured tools is significantly lower than that of non-textured tools, due to a continuous lubrication film between the chip and the rake face of the tool that can be produced because the micro texture can store and replenish lubricant. The surface roughness obtained using the textured tool is better than that using the non-textured tool. The surface roughness Ra can be reduced by 35.89% when using sinusoidal textured tools. This study is helpful for further improving the cutting performance of cemented carbide tools on titanium alloy and prolonging tool life.

Surface texturing has become a potential method to obtain a low friction coefficient under dry/lubricated conditions for different mechanical product surfaces. The mechanism of friction and wear reduction from a micro-texture on the surface of cemented carbide cutting tools was investigated by dry cutting a titanium alloy. Three kinds of micro-textures, namely, line, sinusoidal and rhombic grooves, with different area occupancy rates were produced by a laser on the cemented carbide surface. Experiments and finite element simulation of ABAQUS were used to investigate the tribological characteristics of micro-textured cemented carbide. The results indicated that the line-textured cemented carbide with an area occupancy rate of 10% showed a low friction coefficient of 0.076, which is approximately 34% of the non-textured sample. Few adhesives appeared on the textured surface, while a large number of adhesives were attached to the smooth surface after 30 min of dry friction between the cemented carbide and the titanium alloy balls. Moreover, among the three textures, the line-groove texture has the smallest friction coefficient and a good anti-wear effect. The results show that the existence of a groove texture can effectively reserve the wear debris, reduce the bond wear and weaken the furrow effect.