Experimental study on optimization of WC-Co surface quality by in-situ laser ultrasonic assisted turning

Tungsten carbide (WC-Co) materials have high strength and hardness, as well as excellent wear resistance, and these properties make the effective machining of WC-Co a technically demanding task. In the conventional machining process, the surface of hard-to-machine materials, such as WC-Co, is prone to severe brittle fracture, and the machining quality is difficult to ensure. In contrast, the in situ laser ultrasonic assisted turning (in situ LUAT) process has demonstrated efficacy in the machining of such materials. In this study, a systematic optimization analysis of the main influencing parameters in WC-Co in situ LUAT was carried out by response surface design of experiments, and the surface roughness value of the material after machining with the optimal parameter combination was reduced by 47.9%. The surface formation and damage characteristics of WC-Co under different processing modes were analyzed by one-factor comparative experiments, and the main forms of physical and thermal damage on the material surface were systematically analyzed. This study provides a promising machining method for ultra-precision turning of WC-Co materials.