A new multi-view approach to characterize 3D chip morphology and properties in end milling titanium Ti–6Al–4V

End milling Ti–6Al–4V using a solid mill cutter has being widely used in aerospace, automotive, biomedical, and chemical industries. However, a comprehensive characterization of chip morphology and microstructural and mechanical behavior of machined chips is significantly lacking. A series of end milling experiments were conducted with flood coolant for this purpose. This research provides a new multi-view approach to fully characterize chip morphology including top surface, free surface, back surface, and cross-section surface. Each view of the 3-dimensional (3D) chip has shown different characteristics. The variation of chip dimensions with cutting parameters was also determined. The key findings of this study are: (a) the microstructural analysis shows that β phase experiences severe deformation and transformation to α phase in the second shear zone; (b) the phase transformation further leads to microhardness variations characterized by higher hardness at the surface and the lower hardness in the immediate subsurface; and (c) the shear band as well as the corner section of the chip shows increased hardness.