Case Study

Analysis and optimization of cutter

geometric parameters for surface
integrity in milling titanium alloy using
a modified greyTaguchi method

Proc IMechE Part B:

J Engineering Manufacture
115
IMechE 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0954405415599927
pib.sagepub.com

Junxue Ren1, Jinhua Zhou1 and Jingwen Zeng2

Abstract
Surface integrity determines the performance and quality of the end product. It often needs to change the input parameters, such as cutting parameter, cutting tool geometry and material, and tool coating, to obtain the best machining
surface integrity. This article presents and demonstrates the effectiveness for the multi-objective optimization of cutter
geometric parameters for surface integrity of milling Ti-5Al-5Mo-5V-1Cr-1Fe titanium alloy via grey relational analysis
coupled with the Taguchi method, entropy weight method, and analytic hierarchy process. The main influence factors
are chosen as radial rake angle, primary radial relief angle, and helix angle, while surface roughness and residual stress
are taken as performance characteristics. Based on the Taguchi method, an L16 (43) orthogonal array is chosen for the
experiments. The effect of cutter geometric parameters on surface roughness and residual stress is analysed by signalto-noise ratio. Then, the multiple objectives optimization problem is successfully converted to a single-objective optimization of grey relational grade with the grey relational analysis. The weight coefficient for grey relational grade is determined by entropy weight method integrated with analytic hierarchy process. The results show that the order of
importance for controllable factor to the milling surface integrity, in sequence, is radial rake angle, primary radial relief
angle, and helix angle. The validation experiment verifies that the proposed optimization method has the ability to find
out the optimal geometric parameters in terms of milling surface integrity.

Keywords
Surface integrity, Ti-5Al-5Mo-5V-1Cr-1Fe, cutter geometric parameter, multi-objective optimization, greyTaguchi,
weight coefficient

Date received: 1 August 2014; accepted: 13 July 2015

Introduction
The use of titanium and its alloys has increased recently
due to their superior properties and improvements in
machinability. Manufacturing of titanium alloys that
are critical structural components of the aerospace
industry is also a point of emphasis. Their poor machinability often results in unfavourable accuracy of the
machined product dimensions or end product quality
issues such as surface integrity and lower lifetime proneness. The final manufacturing process is decisive about
the product surface quality, so it should be controlled
and optimized. This study investigates the surface integrity of finish milling Ti-5Al-5Mo-5V-1Cr-1Fe titanium
alloy and explores possible way to adjust cutter geometric parameters to achieve better surface integrity.
Many researches focused on the machined surface
integrity in recent years. The research of Sun showed

that the machined surface exhibits an anisotropic

nature for end milling Ti-6Al-4V, and the b phase
experiences more deformation and volume shrinkage in
the near surface. The compressive residual stress in cutting direction is about 30% larger than that in feed
direction and both increased with cutting speed.1 Hioki
et al.2 evaluated the influence of the cutting parameters
1

The Key Laboratory of Contemporary Design and Integrated

Manufacturing Technology, Ministry of Education, School of Mechanical
Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xian, China
2
Xian Microelectronics Technology Institute, Xian, China
Corresponding author:
Junxue Ren, The Key Laboratory of Contemporary Design and Integrated
Manufacturing Technology, Ministry of Education, School of Mechanical
Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, P.O. Box 552, Xian
710072, China.
Email: rjx1968@nwpu.edu.cn

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Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture

of high-speed milling on the surface integrity properties

of hardened AISI H13 steel. They found that the
engagement, feed per tooth, and cutting speed show
strong influence on the machined surface integrity.
Pawade et al.3 studied the effect of machining parameters and cutting edge geometry on surface integrity
of high-speed turned Inconel 718. They observed that
the highest cutting speed, lowest feed rate, and moderate depth of cut coupled with the use of honed cutting
edge can induce compressive surface residual stress.
Ezilarasan et al.4 found that a combination of 190 m/
min cutting speed and 0.102 mm/rev feed rate is the critical condition for turning Nimonic C-263 alloy based
on surface roughness using whisker-reinforced ceramic
insert. Many researchers reported that cutting speed,
feed, and depth of cut are effective to some degree
increasing surface roughness, and increase in depth of
cut and feed has some effect on making the residual
stress more tensile at the surface and more compressive
in the peak compressive depth.5 Additionally, appropriate lubrication and inclination angles produce substantial benefit in terms of milling surface integrity.6,7
These literature surveys focus on the surface integrity and provide practical approach to obtain the optimal process parameters. But it also has heighted the
dearth of information available to understand the effect
of cutter geometric parameters on surface integrity. In
addition, it is challenging to obtain excellent surface
integrity without losing production efficiency for the
cutting parameter optimization. A large material
removal rate improves production efficiency, but maybe
generates unfavourable surface integrity properties.8
Hence, it is the advantage to obtain a better surface
integrity by optimizing the cutter geometric parameters.
Many researches indicated that cutter geometry has
significant influence on the machining process and
quality characteristics. Different combinations of cutter
geometric parameters might produce large variations in
the final product quality. For instance, a variable pitch
or helix milling tool can be used to reduce the cutting
force and improve the machined surface quality by suppressing the machining chatter.912 Zain et al.13 applied
the genetic algorithm and regression model to find the
optimal solution of the cutting conditions (radial rake
angle, cutting speed, and feed rate) that yielded the
minimum value surface roughness. Wang et al.14 built
an analysis model of parameters affecting performance
in high-speed milling of AISI H13 tool steel considering
cutter geometric parameters and cutting parameters.
Their experimental results indicated that the contributions of tool grinding precision, geometric angle, and
cutting conditions to the performance characteristics
are 11.8%, 9.8%, and 73.1%, respectively.
Arunachalam et al.15 studied the effect of insert shape,
cutting edge preparation, type and nose radius on both
residual stresses, and surface finish. They suggested
that coated carbide cutting tool inserts of round shape,
chamfered cutting edge preparation, negative type and

small nose radius (0.8 mm), and coolant would generate

primarily compressive residual stress.
From the above analyses, it can be seen that cutter
geometric parameters influence the machining process
and performance significantly. Therefore, this study
attempts to determine the influence weight of these factors on multiple surface integrity properties.
Considering the structure complexity and variety of
mill, the current techniques challenge is to design the
various cutter geometric parameters that yield optimum surface integrity, which is a multi-objective optimization problem.
The grey relational analysis (GRA) with the Taguchi
method (greyTaguchi) is an effective approach to
solve the multi-objective optimization problem. This
method has been widely applied in recent years for
optimal process parameter design of multiple performance characteristics.1623 In the traditional machining,
Kopac and Krajnik24 applied the greyTaguchi method
to the robust design of flank milling parameters dealing
with the optimization of the cutting loads, milled surface roughness, and the material removal rate. They
obtained optimal parameter combination of coolant
employment, number of end mill flutes, cutting speed,
feed, axial depth of cut, and radial depth of cut. Tsao25
adopted the greyTaguchi method to optimize the
milling parameters on A6061P-T651 aluminium alloy
with multiple performance characteristics. Haq et al.26
optimized drilling parameters with the considerations
of multiple responses such as surface roughness, cutting
force, and torque for drilling Al/SiC metal matrix composite with the GRA in the Taguchi method. Koklu27
focused on the optimization of the continuous and
interrupted cylindrical grinding of AISI 4140 steel considering the effect of workpiece speed, depth of cut,
and the number of slots on the surface roughness and
roundness error using the grey-based Taguchi method.
To sum up, even though the effect of process parameters on the machined surface integrity has been accumulated a lot, results are mainly dependent on
complicated factors. Furthermore, the factors that
these studies focused on are very dispersed and the surface integrity is not integrately evaluated. The multiobjective optimization of radial rake angle, primary
radial relief angle, and helix angle for milling surface
integrity is not yet available. More empirical studies
should be carried out to test the impact and optimization processes of different combination of cutter geometric parameters. Therefore, this research focuses on
the mill geometry optimization and machined surface
integrity for milling Ti-5Al-5Mo-5V-1Cr-1Fe titanium
alloy and introduces the greyTaguchi method to
search the optimal cutter geometric parameters. The
design factors are selected as radial rake angle, primary
radial relief angle, and helix angle, while the surface
integrity are evaluated by surface roughness and surface residual stress. Additionally, the influences of cutter geometric parameters on surface integrity are
analysed with the Taguchi method. Then, the

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Ren et al.

Figure 1. Multi-objective optimization flow diagram of cutter geometric parameters.

correlations between the factors and surface integrity

are studied using the GRA method. Finally, a validation experiment verifies the effectiveness of this
approach. The multi-objective optimization flow diagram of cutter geometric parameters using a modified
greyTaguchi method is illustrated in Figure 1.

Experimental procedure
Machining setup
A set of milling experiments is conducted in a threecoordinate vertical computer numerical control (CNC)
machining centreJOHNFORD VMC-850 with maximum spindle speed of 8000 rpm, maximum feed rate of
12 m/min, and spindle power of 10 hp. The workpiece
material used in all experiments is Ti-5Al-5Mo-5V-1Cr1Fe titanium alloy. The chemical composition is Al:
4.4-5.9wt%, Mo: 4.0-5.5wt%, V: 4.0-5.5wt%, Cr: 0.51.5wt%, Fe: 0.5-1.5wt%, C: 0.1wt%, Si: 0.15wt%, Zr:
0.3wt%, N: 0.05wt%, H: 0.015wt%, O: 0.2wt%, and
the rest of Ti. The shapes of workpieces are oblong
blocks with the size of 71 mm 3 55 mm 3 49 mm.
The cutters are four-flute toroidal end mills with the
carbide body K40, diameter of 12 mm, circular arc
radius of 2 mm, and uncoated edge. To reduce the
influence of tool wear, a fresh cutter is used in each
experiment. The milling parameters in each experiment are fixed at the level with spindle speed
s = 500 r/min, axial milling depth ap = 5 mm, radial
milling depth ae = 1 mm, and feed rate fz = 0.035
mm/z. The overhang length of toroidal end mill is
fixed as 44 mm. All cutting experiments are performed in down milling using emulsified liquid.
Figure 2 shows the milling process.

Figure 2. Milling process.

Experimental design
This study discusses the relationship between cutter
geometric parameters and the surface integrity of
milling Ti-5Al-5Mo-5V-1Cr-1Fe titanium alloy in order
to obtain the optimal geometric parameter combination. First, the objective performance characteristics
are focused on two aspects: surface roughness and surface residual stress. The performance characteristics for
surface roughness contain the surface roughness of
machined bottom surface and side surface, denoted as
SRb and SRs respectively. The residual stresses are the
surface residual stress of machined bottom surface and
side surface, denoted as RSb and RSs, respectively. The
machined bottom surface is formed by the end edges,
while the machined side surface is formed by the side
edges. Next, the control process parameters having
influence on the surface integrity properties are radial

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Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture

Table 1. Cutter geometric parameters and their levels.

Symbol

Geometric parameter

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Level 4

A
B
C

Radial rake angle ()

Primary radial relief angle ()
Helix angle ()

4
10
30

8
12
40

12
14
50

16
16
60

Table 2. Taguchi L16 (43) orthogonal array and experimental results.

Experiment no.

SRb (mm)

SRs (mm)

RSb (Mpa)

RSs (Mpa)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16

1
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
4
4
4
4

1
2
3
4
1
2
3
4
1
2
3
4
1
2
3
4

1
2
3
4
2
1
4
3
3
4
1
2
4
3
2
4

0.199
0.115
0.148
0.140
0.232
0.246
0.225
0.140
0.262
0.280
0.226
0.362
0.119
0.159
0.248
0.347

0.169
0.160
0.177
0.209
0.175
0.147
0.196
0.123
0.201
0.199
0.132
0.117
0.199
0.167
0.160
0.173

2335.4
2201.4
2276.6
2217.7
2267.7
2170.9
2162.9
2241.9
2179.4
2222.2
2208.6
2183
2209.1
2158.9
2212.3
2171.7

2185.9
2117.3
2130.2
2121.2
297.2
2133.3
2137.5
2140.1
2142.3
2167.4
2149.8
2130.8
2122.9
2116
2120.3
2147.5

Note: Values in bold face are idea values.

Figure 3. Geometrical parameters of a toroidal end mill.

rake angle (A), primary radial relief angle (B), and helix
angle (C). Table 1 lists the cutter geometric parameters
and their levels. Figure 3 diagrammatizes these three
kind of angles. Radial rake angle indicates the angle of
the flute face with respect to a line drawn from the cutting edge at the outer diameter to the centre of the tool.
Most toroidal end mills are ground with positive rake
angles. In application, larger positive rake angles are
used on softer materials, and smaller positive rake
angles are used on harder materials. Primary radial
relief angle is ground for the length of cut to provide
clearance behind the cutting edge. In general, larger
relief angle is favoured for softer materials, and smaller

relief angle are used for harder materials. Helix angle is

defined as the inclination of the cutting edges with
respect to the axis of the tool. Then, these experiments
are conducted with a three controllable four-level factors and four response variables. Therefore, the
Taguchi orthogonal array L16 (43) is used to reduce
the number of experiments, as shown in Table 2.

Measurement procedure
Surface integrity includes the mechanical properties,
such as residual stress, hardness, and microstructural
changes, and topological parameters such as surface

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Ren et al.

Experimental results and discussion

Analysis of signal-to-noise ratio for single
performance characteristic

Figure 4. Surface roughness measurement.

Table 2 shows the measurement results of surface

roughness and residual stress for the 16 experiments.
Negative sign of residual stress only represents that the
residual stress is compressive and is not taken in the calculation. In order to study the effect of cutter geometry
on the surface integrity, the Taguchi method is used to
seek the optimal level combination of cutter geometric
parameters for single surface integrity property.
The Taguchi method is a simple and effective solution for parameter design and experiment planning.28 In
this method, Taguchi recommended analysing the performance of process response using signal-to-noise (S/
N) ratio, in which the largest value of S/N is required.
There are three types of S/N ratiothe larger-the-better
model (LBM), the smaller-the-better model (SBM), and
the nominal-the-better model (NBM).29
1.

LBM
Maximum response characteristic means that the
target extreme value is infinity. The S/N ratio is as
below
!
N
1X
1
S=N =  10 log
1
N i = 1 y2i

where yi is the response value of the ith test and N is

the number of measurements in each test.
Figure 5. Surface residual stress measurement.

roughness. In this study, the surface roughness and residual stress are taken as assessment criteria for surface
integrity of milling Ti-5Al-5Mo-5V-1Cr-1Fe titanium
alloy. The expressed surface roughness in this article is
the arithmetic mean deviation of the surface roughness
profile Ra. The surface roughness of machined surface
is measured in feed direction by surface roughness tester
MarSurf M 300 C, made by MAHR Co. Ltd, as shown
in Figure 4. An average value of five measurements of
surface roughness is used to evaluate geometric accuracy of machined surface. Measuring residual stress is
very difficult. X-ray diffraction (XRD) method stands
out as the reliable, nondestructive, and easily accessible
technique. In this method, the surface residual stress is
measured in PROTO LXRD MG2000, made by
PROTO Co. Ltd, with Gu-Ka radiation using XRD
method. Figure 5 illustrates the measurement process of
surface residual stress. The surface residual stress in
feed direction is used to evaluate the physical property
of machined surface. An average of two measurements
of surface residual stress is taken as the results.

2.

SBM
Minimum response characteristic means that the
target extreme value will be 0. The S/N ratio with
a smaller-the-better characteristic is defined as follows
"
#
N
1X
2
S=N =  10 log
(yi )
2
N i=1

3.

NBM
Targeted response characteristic means that the
response result is the target value. The S/N ratio
can be expressed as below
 2
u
S=N = 10 log 2
3
s

where
u=

N
1X
yi
N i=1

and

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Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture

Table 3. The S/N ratio of the experimental results.

Experiment no.

S/N (dB)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16

SRb

SRs

RSb

RSs

14.023
18.786
16.595
17.077
12.690
12.181
12.956
17.077
11.634
11.057
12.918
8.826
18.489
15.972
12.111
9.193

15.442
15.918
15.041
13.597
15.139
16.654
14.155
18.202
13.936
14.023
17.589
18.636
14.023
15.546
15.918
15.239

50.511
46.081
48.837
46.757
48.553
44.655
44.238
47.673
45.076
46.935
46.386
45.249
46.407
44.023
46.539
44.695

45.386
41.386
42.292
41.670
39.753
42.497
42.766
42.929
43.064
44.475
43.510
42.332
41.791
41.289
41.605
43.376

Note: Values in bold face are idea values.

Table 4. Mean S/N ratio for bottom surface roughness.

Factors

Level (S/N)

A
B
C

Maximumminimum

16.620
14.209
12.079

13.726
14.499
13.103

11.109
13.645
15.320

13.941
13.043
14.895

5.511
1.456
3.241

Note: Values in bold face are idea values.

s2 =

N
1 X
(yi  u)2
N  1 i=1

Obviously, smaller values of surface roughness are

desirable. Thus, the data sequences have a smaller-thebetter characteristic and the SBM, and equation (2) is
used to calculate the S/N ratio. Higher tensile residual
stress tends to present potential risk in terms of crack
initiation and propagation, and fatigue failure of end
products, but the compressive residual stress has the
opposite effect. Now that all these measurement results
present compressive surface residual stresses, and the
LBM of S/N ratio can be used to calculate the S/N ratio
for surface residual stress.
Table 3 shows the results of S/N ratio. A higher S/N
ratio value represents that the response value is closer
to the expected performance characteristic. According
to this criterion, it is obviously observed that experiment no. 2 has the maximum S/N ratio for bottom surface roughness. It means the optimum combination of
cutter geometric parameters is A1B2C2 among the
experiment arrays. Side surface roughness has a higher
S/N ratio in experiment no. 12 than that in the others.
Therefore, the design factors A3B4C2 should be selected
if only considering the side surface roughness for
milling Ti-5Al-5Mo-5V-1Cr-1Fe titanium alloy. As to

the surface residual stress, the largest value can be

obtained from experiment no. 1 at levels A1B1C1
among the 16 experiments.
The response table for the Taguchi method is used
to calculate the mean S/N ratios for each factor level.
First, group the S/N ratios by factor level for each column in the orthogonal array. Next, take their average.
For example, the S/N ratio for A at level 1 can be calculated as follows
MA1 =

1
(14:023 + 18:786 + 16:595 + 17:077) = 16:620
4

The mean S/N ratios for each cutter geometric parameter level are calculated using the same process
method.
Based on the data presented in Table 4, the optimal
combination of parameters is A1B2C3 for the bottom
surface roughness, namely, radial rake angle is 4, primary radial relief angle is 12, and helix angle is 50.
Figure 6 shows the fluctuation of mean S/N ratio of
bottom surface roughness with the change in cutter
geometric parameters. The bottom surface roughness
increases with the radial rake angle and primary radial
relief angle on the overall trend. The reason could be
that larger rake angle and relief angle weaken the cutter
which leads to stronger cutter wear and increases

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Figure 6. S/N response graph for bottom surface roughness.

Figure 7. S/N response graph for side surface roughness.

Table 5. Mean S/N ratio for side surface roughness.
Factors

A
B
C

Level (S/N)

Maximumminimum

15.000
14.635
16.231

16.038
15.535
16.403

16.046
15.676
15.681

15.182
16.419
13.950

1.046
1.784
2.453

Note: Values in bold face are idea values.

vibration in axial direction. Simultaneously, a radial

rake angle also provides a better bottom surface finish
since it aids the chip to flow out from the workpiece.30
Therefore, the bottom surface roughness has obvious
decrease when radial rake angle reaches 16. From the
figure, it can be observed that the bottom surface
roughness decreases as the helix angle increases.

From Table 5, the optimum cutter geometric parameters for side surface roughness are as follows: radial
rake angle of 12, primary radial relief angle of 16, and
helix angle of 40. The mean S/N ratio plot of side surface roughness with respect to radial rake angle, primary radial relief angle, and helix angle is shown in
Figure 7. According to parallel shear zone theory,

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Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture

Table 6. Mean S/N ratio for residual stress of bottom surface.

Factors

A
B
C

Level (S/N)

Maximumminimum

48.047
47.637
46.562

46.280
45.424
46.606

45.912
46.500
46.402

45.416
46.094
46.084

2.631
2.213
0.522

Note: Values in bold face are idea values.

Table 7. Mean S/N ratio for residual stress of side surface.

Factors

A
B
C

Level (S/N)

Maximumminimum

42.684
42.499
43.692

41.986
42.412
41.269

43.345
42.543
42.394

42.015
42.577
42.676

1.359
0.165
2.423

Note: Values in bold face are idea values.

Figure 8. S/N response graph for residual stress of bottom surface.

larger positive radial rake angle provides higher shear

angle.31 It also produces sharper cutting edges on the
periphery, which leads to diminishing peripheral milling
force or lateral cutting force. But the excessive rake
angle weakens the cutter and possibly increases acceleration amplitude in feed direction.32 Therefore, the
side surface roughness first decreases approaching a
value at a radial rake angle of 12 and then increases.
The side surface roughness decreases with primary
radial relief angle due to the fact that larger relief angle
weakens the friction effect between radial relief surface
and side surface of the workpiece by shortening the
contact length. It can be observed from Figure 7 that as
the helix angle increases, the side surface roughness also
increases. A possible reason is that higher helix angle
leads to more roughness heterogeneity bands due to the

grinding errors and high eccentricity of the cutters used

in experiment.33
As to the residual stress, Tables 6 and 7 illustrate the
results of mean S/N ratio for the machined bottom and
side surface. According to the Taguchi method, the
maximum compressive residual stress can be obtained
for bottom surface and side surface at the parameter
levels A1B1C2 and A3B4C1, respectively. The mean S/N
ratios at each level are plotted as a response graph
shown in Figures 8 and 9. It can be seen that the residual compressive stress of the bottom surface monotonically decreases with the radial rake angle. But the
other residual stress curves show no obvious regularity.
Generally, cutting residual stress can be affected by
mechanical loading and thermal effects.34 In cutting
process, mechanical load caused by cutting force

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Ren et al.

Figure 9. S/N response graph for residual stress of side surface.

induces residual compressive stress, while thermal load

caused by cutting temperature induces residual tensile
stress. Larger cutting force leads to higher cutting temperature. Therefore, residual compressive stress may
increase or decrease with the change in cutting force
caused by varying these cutter geometric angles.

relational generation. If the purpose is the larger-thebetter, then the normalized results can be expressed as

Multi-objective optimization of cutter geometric

parameters

where xi (k) is the normalized value of the kth performance characteristic in the ith experiment, while x(0)
i (k)
is the original result of the kth performance characteristic in the ith experiment; m is the total number of tests;
and n is equal to the number of performance
characteristics.
If the target value of the original sequence is the
smaller-the-better performance characteristic, then the
original sequence is normalized as follows

Analysis of S/N ratios is available for single-objective

optimization problem, but ineffective for multiresponse characteristics. It often exists in multiobjective optimization problem that the higher S/N
ratio for one performance characteristic may correspond to a lower S/N ratio for another. So, it is essential to evaluate overall S/N ratios in multi-objective
optimization problem. In this study, the multiple performance characteristics are evaluated using the GRA,
which converts a multiple response process optimization into a single-objective optimization of the grey
relational grade (GRG).
In the GRA, the performance characteristics are first
normalized, ranging from 0 to 1. This experiment data
process is called grey relational generation. The second
step is to calculate the grey relational coefficient (GRC)
based on the normalized experimental data, which represents the correlation between the desired data
sequence and the actual experimental data sequence.
Finally, the GRG sequence can be obtained from the
weighted average of the GRC. The surface integrity of
milling Ti-5Al-5Mo-5V-1Cr-1Fe titanium alloy is evaluated by the GRG.
Grey relational generation. In the GRA, raw data preprocessing is the first step, which is known as grey

xi (k) =

(0)
x(0)
i (k)  minfxi (k)g
(0)
maxfx(0)
i (k)g  minfxi (k)g

i = 1, . . . , m, k = 1, . . . , n

xi (k) =

(0)
maxfx(0)
i (k)g  xi (k)
(0)
maxfx(0)
i (k)g  minfxi (k)g

i = 1, . . . , m, k = 1, . . . , n

As mentioned above, a larger S/N ratio is desirable

and the larger-the-better is adopted. Consequently,
equation (5), a linear normalization, is used to preprocess the origin response characteristic sequences. The
values of the surface roughness and surface residual
stress are set to be the origin sequence x(0)
i (k), where k
is less than or equal to 4 corresponding to the number
of performance characteristics and i is not more than
16 corresponding to the number of experiments. Then,
the S/N ratios obtained by the Taguchi method are normalized in the range of 01. The origin matrix O is the
composition of origin sequence x(0)
i (k). After grey relational generation, the matrix S shows the normalized
results for surface roughness and surface residual stress.
Basically, the larger normalized results correspond to

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10

Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture

the better performance and the best normalized results

should be equal to 1
3

x0 = 1, 1, 1, 1

The comparability sequence

has been obtained
from the previous step. Then, according to equation
(8), the maximum and minimum of deviation sequences
are calculated as follows

8k

8i

i = 1  m, k = 1  n

8k

max max D0i (k) = j0  1j = 1, 14i416, 14k44

10

min min D0i (k) = j1  1j = 0, 14i416, 14k44

11

8i

8i

8k

8k

The value of z is smaller and the identification ability is larger. In this study, it is set as 0.5.17 With equation (7), it is easy to obtain the GRC matrix R from the
normalized matrix S
3
2
0:511 0:441 1:000 1:000
6 1:000 0:481 0:423 0:413 7
7
6
6 0:694 0:412 0:660 0:477 7
7
6
6 0:744 0:333 0:463 0:431 7
7
6
6 0:450 0:419 0:623 0:333 7
7
6
6 0:430 0:560 0:356 0:494 7
7
6
6 0:461 0:360 0:341 0:518 7
7
6
6 0:744 0:853 0:534 0:534 7
7
6
R16 3 4 = 6
7
6 0:411 0:349 0:374 0:548 7
6 0:392 0:353 0:476 0:755 7
7
6
6 0:459 0:706 0:440 0:600 7
7
6
6 0:333 1:000 0:381 0:480 7
7
6
6 0:943 0:353 0:441 0:439 7
7
6
6 0:639 0:449 0:333 0:407 7
7
6
4 0:427 0:481 0:450 0:427 5
0:342 0:426 0:358 0:583

g i (k) = g(x0 (k), xi (k)) =

min min D0i (k) + z max max D0i (k)
8i

xi (k)

GRC. After obtaining the normalized sequence, the

next step is to calculate the GRC. In the GRA, a higher
value of the GRC, ranging from 0 to 1, corresponds to
intense relational degree between the desired performance characteristics and the actual performance characteristics. The GRC is defined as follows

8k

where x0 (k) is the reference sequence, xi (k) is the comparability sequence, D0i (k) is the deviation sequence of
xi (k) and x0 (k), and z is the distinguishing coefficient
between 0 and 1.
The reference sequence indicates the expected
sequence. According to the normalized results, the reference sequence should be taken the maximum as
follows

0:037 0:326 0:104 0:643

D0i (k) + z max max D0i (k)

D0i (k) = jxi (k)  x0 (k)j

0 \ g(x0 (k), xi (k)) \ 1

14:023 15:442 50:511 45:386

6 18:786 15:918 46:081 41:386 7
7
6
7
6
6 16:595 15:041 48:837 42:292 7
7
6
6 17:077 13:597 46:757 41:670 7
7
6
7
6
6 12:690 15:139 48:553 39:753 7
7
6
6 12:181 16:654 44:655 42:497 7
7
6
7
6
6 12:956 14:155 44:238 42:766 7
7
6
6 17:077 18:202 47:673 42:929 7
7
6
O16 3 4 = 6
7
6 11:634 13:936 45:076 43:064 7
7
6
6 11:057 14:023 46:935 44:475 7
7
6
7
6
6 12:918 17:589 46:386 43:510 7
7
6
6 8:826 18:636 45:249 42:332 7
7
6
7
6
6 18:489 14:023 46:407 41:791 7
7
6
6 15:972 15:546 44:023 41:289 7
7
6
7
6
4 12:111 15:918 46:539 41:605 5
9:193 15:239 44:695 43:376
3
2
0:522 0:366 1:000 1:000
6 1:000 0:461 0:317 0:290 7
7
6
7
6
6 0:780 0:287 0:742 0:451 7
7
6
6 0:828 0:000 0:421 0:340 7
7
6
7
6
6 0:388 0:306 0:698 0:000 7
7
6
6 0:337 0:607 0:097 0:487 7
7
6
7
6
6 0:415 0:111 0:033 0:535 7
7
6
6 0:828 0:914 0:563 0:564 7
7
6
S16 3 4 = 6
7
6 0:282 0:067 0:162 0:588 7
7
6
6 0:224 0:085 0:449 0:838 7
7
6
7
6
6 0:411 0:792 0:364 0:667 7
7
6
6 0:000 1:000 0:189 0:458 7
7
6
7
6
6 0:970 0:085 0:367 0:362 7
7
6
6 0:717 0:387 0:000 0:273 7
7
6
7
6
4 0:330 0:461 0:388 0:329 5

8i

where

Weight coefficient. In order to obtain the GRG sequence,

the weight of multi-performance characteristics needs
to be determined. It is also the weight of the column
vector of matrix R. The previous researchers prefer to
use the same weight, which ignores the difference of
multi-performance characteristics. The weight of various performance is different from each other for the
current engineering problem due to variety of surface
integrity properties. In this section, a weight determination method is proposed to calculate the weight of
milling surface integrity by entropy weight method
(EWM) combined with analytic hierarchy process

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Ren et al.

11

(AHP). The amalgamative method reflects the objective

competition level of multi-performance characteristics
by EWM and the specialistic evaluation for these
indexes by AHP.
The process of determining weight of multiperformance characteristics is as follows:
Step 1. Calculate the objective weight by EWM.
First, calculate the weight of ith experiment for each
performance characteristic by equation (12). In other
words, calculate the weight of ith row by column. The
matrix P can be obtained from the matrix R
Pij =

Rij
(i = 1, 2, . . . , m; j = 1, 2, . . . , n)
m
P
Rij

12

i=1

where the Pij is the weight of ith experiment for jth performance characteristic, m is the total number of test,
and n is the number of performance characteristics
3
2
0:057 0:055 0:131 0:118
6 0:111 0:060 0:055 0:049 7
7
6
6 0:077 0:052 0:086 0:057 7
7
6
6 0:083 0:042 0:060 0:051 7
7
6
6 0:050 0:053 0:081 0:039 7
7
6
6 0:048 0:070 0:047 0:059 7
7
6
6 0:051 0:045 0:045 0:061 7
7
6
6 0:083 0:107 0:070 0:063 7
7
P16 3 4 = 6
6 0:046 0:044 0:049 0:065 7
7
6
6 0:044 0:044 0:062 0:089 7
7
6
6 0:051 0:089 0:057 0:071 7
7
6
6 0:037 0:125 0:050 0:057 7
7
6
6 0:105 0:044 0:058 0:052 7
7
6
6 0:071 0:056 0:044 0:048 7
7
6
4 0:048 0:060 0:059 0:051 5
0:038 0:053 0:047 0:069
Second, calculate entropy value of the jth performance characteristic. The entropy row vector e can be
obtained from the matrix P by equation (13)
ej = 

m
1 X
Pij ln Pij
ln m i = 1

(j = 1, 2, . . . , n)

13

where ej is the entropy of the jth performance

characteristic
e = 0:9782 0:9778 0:9821 0:9861

Finally, determine the entropy weight vector a for

the multi-performance characteristics by equation (14)
aj =

1  ej
n
P
n
ej

Table 8. Comparison of importance degree.

SRb
SRs
RSb
RSs

SRb

SRs

RSb

RSs

1
1
3
3

1
1
3
3

1/3
1/3
1
1

1/3
1/3
1
1

The subjective weight depends on the specialistic evaluation on the specific engineering problems. Table 8
shows the relative importance degree by pairwise comparison of the multi-performance characteristics.
Therefore, the judgment matrix J is as follows
3
2
1 1
61 1 3 37
6
1 17
7
6
J4 3 4 = 6 1 1
7
6
3 37
43 3 1 15
3 3 1 1
The weight vector b for multi-performance characteristics can be easily calculated by asymptotic normalization coefficient method
b = 0:125 0:125

0:375 0:375

Step 3. Determine the amalgamative weight vector.

The amalgamative weight of each performance characteristic can expressed as follows
vj =

aj bj
n
P
aj bj

15

where vj is the weight of the jth performance

characteristic.
The amalgamative weight vector v is calculated by
equation (15) as follows
v = 0:157 0:159 0:384 0:299

GRG. The GRG expresses the correlation between the

comparability sequence and the reference sequence. A
higher GRG presents that the corresponding multiperformance characteristics are closer to the ideal value.
The GRG ranges from 0 to 1 and equals to 1 when the
two sequences agree with each other completely. The
GRG can be expressed as follows
g i (x0 , xi ) =

n
X

vk gi (k),

i = 1  m, k = 1  n

k=1

(j = 1, 2, . . . , n)

14

or
g = R 3 vT

j=1

where aj is the entropy weight vector for the multiperformance characteristics

a = 0:288 0:292 0:235 0:183

Step 2. Calculate the subjective weight by AHP.

16

where v is the weight factor of the kth performance

characteristic.
The GRG is used to evaluate the overall surface
integrity. The parametric combination with highest
GRG implies that the corresponding experimental run

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Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture

Table 9. Response table of the average grey relational grade.

Factors

A
B
C

GRG
1

0.600
0.560
0.560

0.487
0.477
0.485

0.497
0.491
0.509

0.451
0.507
0.481

Maximumminimum

Rank

0.149
0.084
0.080

1
2
3

Note: Values in bold face are idea values

GRG: grey relational grade.
Total mean value of the GRG was 0.509.

Figure 10. Response graph of average grey relational grade.

is closest to the optimal value of the desired multiple

performance characteristics.23 The GRG vector g can
be determined by equation (16) as follows. It is clearly
observed that g1 has the largest value among the components of vector g. It also suggests that the experiment no. 1 has the optimal surface integrity among the
16 experiments
3
2
0:833
6 0:519 7
7
6
6 0:571 7
7
6
6 0:476 7
7
6
6 0:476 7
7
6
6 0:441 7
7
6
6 0:415 7
7
6
6 0:617 7
7
6
g=6
7
6 0:427 7
6 0:526 7
7
6
6 0:533 7
7
6
6 0:501 7
7
6
6 0:505 7
7
6
6 0:421 7
7
6
4 0:444 5
0:433
The average GRGs for each factor level have been
calculated using the process approach similar to that of

the mean S/N ratios, as shown in Table 9. The average

of GRG at each level is plotted as a response shown in
Figure 10. Since the GRG reflects the level of correlation between the comparability and the reference
sequences, a larger GRG represents the comparability
sequence exhibiting a stronger correlation with the reference sequence [1, 1, 1, 1]. Based on this basic criterion
of grey system theory, one can select a combination of
the design factor levels that provide the largest average
performance characteristics. As listed in Table 9, the
combination of A1, B1, and C1 exhibits the largest
value of the GRG for the design factors A, B, and C,
respectively. Consequently, A1B1C1 with a radial rake
angle of 4, primary radial relief angle of 10, and helix
angle of 30 is the optimum cutter geometric parameter
combination.
From Table 9, the difference between the maximum
and minimum values of the GRG of the cutter geometric parameters is 0.149 for A, 0.084 for B, and 0.080
for C. These difference values reflect the level of effect
of cutter geometric parameters on the performance
characteristics. In other words, the comparison among
the difference values will qualitatively give the level of
significance of the control factors over the milling surface integrity. It can be easily observed that the maximum value among 0.149, 0.084, and 0.080 is 0.149,

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Ren et al.

13

Table 10. Comparison results of the initial and optimal cutter geometric parameters.
Initial cutter geometric parameters

Optimal cutter geometric parameters

Prediction

Level
SRb (mm)
SRs (mm)
RSb (MPa)
RSs (MPa)
GRG

A2B1C2
0.232
0.175
2267.7
297.2
0.476

Improvement rate (%)

Validation tests

A1B1C1
0.199
0.169
2335.4
2185.9
0.833

0.702

14.2
3.40
25.3
91.3
75.0

GRG: grey relational grade.

Improvement in the GRG is 0.357.

which means radial rake angle has the most remarkable

effect on the multiple performance characteristics
among the cutter geometric parameters. That is to say
the order of optimization for cutter geometric parameters should be A (radial rake angle) . B (primary
radial relief angle) . C (helix angle) in this study.

Validation tests
^ using the optimum cutter geoThe estimated GRG g
metric parameters can be expressed as
^ = gm +
g

n
X

significantly improved by optimization of cutter geometric parameters.

Conclusion
This study applies the GRA integrated with the
Taguchi method, EWM, and AHP to optimize the cutter geometric parameters in terms of surface integrity
for milling Ti-5Al-5Mo-5V-1Cr-1Fe titanium alloy.
Conclusions are summarized as follows:
1.

(
gi  g m )

17

i=1

 is the mean
where g m is the total mean of the GRG, g
of the GRG at the optimal level, and n is the number
of control factors that significantly affects the multiple
performance characteristics.
Generally, the GRG under optimal parameters can
be calculated by equation (17) in greyTaguchi method.
As mentioned above, the GRG reaches its maximum
value at A1B1C1 which coincidentally corresponds to
experiment no. 1 in the Taguchi orthogonal array L16
(43). Therefore, one more validation test is superfluous.
The effectiveness of the modified greyTaguchi method
can be verified by comparing the response results of the
parameter combination A1B1C1 and initial parameter
combination. The initial cutter geometric parameters
are selected as A2B1C2 with a radial rake angle of 8,
primary radial relief angle of 10, and helix angle of 40
according to engineering experience.
Table 10 illustrates the comparison of the experimental results using the initial and optimal cutter geometric parameters. Under the condition with the levels
A1B1C1 of the optimum parameters, the GRG has been
improved by 0.357; the bottom and side surface roughness are decreased to 0.199 (an improvement of 14.2
%) and 0.169 mm (an improvement of 3.40 %), respectively; and the compressive residual stress of bottom
and side surface is improved from 267.7 and 97.2 MPa
to 335.4 and 185.9 MPa, respectively. In summary, it is
clearly shown that the surface integrity of milling Ti5Al-5Mo-5V-1Cr-1Fe
titanium
alloy
can
be

2.

3.

The validation experiment indicates that the grey

Taguchi method is an effective approach of multiobjective optimization to the cutter geometry for
machined surface integrity. With this method, the
GRG of the multiple performance characteristics
is significantly improved by 0.357.
With the analysis of S/N ratio, the optimum radial
rake angle, primary radial relief angle, and helix
angle for bottom surface roughness are 4, 12, and
50, respectively; the optimal controllable factors for
side surface roughness are radial rake angle of 12,
primary radial relief angle of 16, and helix angle of
40; the optimum radial rake angle, primary radial
relief angle, and helix angle for residual stress of bottom surface are 4, 10, and 40, respectively; the
optimal controllable factors for residual stress of
side surface are radial rake angle of 12, primary
radial relief angle of 16, and helix angle of 30.
The radial rake angle is the most significant control factor for the milling surface integrity among
the three cutter geometric parameters. The largest
value of GRG is obtained at the combination of
cutter geometric parameters with a radial rake
angle of 4, primary radial relief angle of 10, and
helix angle of 30 It is the recommended levels of
cutter geometric parameters in terms of surface
roughness and residual stress for milling Ti-5Al5Mo-5V-1Cr-1Fe titanium alloy.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest
with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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14

Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the
National Science and Technology Major Project of
China (no. 2013ZX04001081) and the Doctorate
Foundation of Northwestern Polytechnical University
(no. CX201514).
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R
RSb
RSs
s
S
S/N
SRb
SRs
x(0)
i (k)
xi (k)
xi (k)
x0 (k)
yi

Appendix 1
Notation
ap
ae
A
B
C
e
fz
J
m
n
N
O

Pij

axial milling depth

radial milling depth
radial rake angle
primary radial relief angle
helix angle
entropy row vector
feed rate
judgment matrix
total number of tests
number of performance characteristics
number of measurements in each test
matrix composed of origin results x(0)
i (k)

a
b
gi
g i (k)

^
g
D0i (k)
z
v

weight of the ith experiment for the jth

performance characteristic
matrix composed of the grey relational
coefficients
residual stress of bottom surface
residual stress of side surface
spindle speed
matrix composed of normalized results of
performance characteristics xi (k)
signal-to-noise ratio
bottom surface roughness
side surface roughness
original result of the kth performance
characteristic in the ith experiment
normalized value of the kth performance
characteristic in the ith experiment
comparability sequence
reference sequence
response value of the ith test
entropy weight vector calculated by EWM
weight vector calculated by AHP
grey relational grade of the ith experiment
grey relational coefficient of the ith
performance characteristic in the ith
experiment
estimated grey relational grade
deviation sequence of xi (k) and x0 (k)
distinguishing coefficient
amalgamative weight vector

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