A comparative study on modeling approaches towards laser-assisted machining

Finite element method (FEM) is widely used in machining processes as it can efficiently respond to the thermomechanical deformation and removal processes of materials. In this paper, FEM simulation analysis for laser-assisted machining (LAM) of Ti6Al4V alloy is carried out using two different modeling approaches: the sequentially coupled simulation (SCS) and the predefined fields coupled simulation (PFCS). The results of temperature, cutting force and chip morphology are obtained by these different approaches and verified by experiments. By analyzing the errors of the two approaches, the results show that the cutting force and chip morphology errors of the SCS method are 16.14% and 11.11%, respectively, while the errors of the PFCS method are 7.58% and 16.67%. However, neither of these approaches can fully simulate the complete LAM process. Therefore, a fully coupled simulation (FCS) approach needs to be developed to overcome the shortcomings of the above two methods.