MACHINING ALUMINIUM: IS IT REALLY THAT EASY?

Although often considered easy to machine, aluminium presents unique challenges that demand precision tools and strategies. This article explores how advanced cutting tool technologies—especially from ISCAR—are redefining aluminium machining to maximise performance, productivity, and surface quality.

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Aluminium possesses unique qualities and can appear white or silver. It is incorrodible like gold, as tenacious as iron, as fusible as copper, and as light as glass. It is easily workable and widely found in nature, as it is based on alumina, which forms the basis of most rocks. Aluminium is three times lighter than iron; in short, it seems to have been created expressly to furnish projectile material! This characteristic of aluminium, described by Jules Verne—the French novelist, poet, and playwright—many years ago, explains why aluminium and its alloys have become essential engineering materials. Its lightweight nature, good formability and machinability, and high corrosion resistance have made aluminium extremely popular in the aerospace, automotive, and packaging industries, as well as in resin mould manufacturing, homeware, and other fields.

The use of pure aluminium is limited. In most industrial applications, aluminium is used in the form of alloys with various alloying elements, typically copper, magnesium, silicon, zinc, and others. Therefore, when discussing the machining of aluminium, it usually refers to cutting aluminium alloys.

Aluminium is considered a material with good machinability. There is a widespread belief that machining aluminium does not pose any problems. "Take a sharp cutting tool and machine aluminium as fast as you can", this tenet is very common in manufacturing environments. Indeed, aluminium is one of the most machinable engineering materials.

Hence, the main task when machining aluminium, as manufacturers perceive it, is to ensure maximum productivity based on the capabilities of the machine tools. This is true; however, your cutting tool should not only enable this but also ensure a reasonable tool life and avoid breaking shortly thereafter.