Study of distortion on milled thin-wall aluminum parts influenced by initial residual stress and toolpath strategy

Monolithic aluminum alloy parts are highly required in the aeronautical industry, but they show significant geometrical distortion after machining process. This work investigated attributed by initial residual stress of raw material and machining-induced during milling process, as well exploring effects toolpath strategy. Single-/multi-pocket were milled from 7050-T7451 blocks with different stresses, an element deletion method was developed for numerical study to simulate sequences removal. It revealed that parallel long side block caused more on surfaces final part. The value positively correlated magnitude material. simulation results indicated accounted about 15% distortion. finding promotes design optimization monolithic minimizing distortion, thereby benefitting application large industry.