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Velocity effect sensitivity analysis of ball-end milling Ti-6Al-4 V

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Abstract

Ball-end cutters are widely used in industries of dies, molds, and aerospace, which have the problem of poor machined surface quality due to the low cutting speed near the tool-tip. With the increase in the complexity of parts, it will become more and more difficult to avoid the tool-tip participating in the cutting. In this paper, the velocity effect sensitivity of the ball-end cutter is analyzed, and several key positions, including the intersection points of the CWE boundaries, are selected to describe the cutting speed in three dimensions. The relationships between the cutting speed of the critical points and important variables such as the machining inclination angle and the feed direction were investigated. The optimal range of feed direction is obtained when the tool-tip engages in the contact circle. The core aim of the feed direction selection is to make the tool engagement area in a high position by changing the feed direction, to avoid surface damage and improve the quality of the machined surface. Finally, an experimental study was carried out, and the results corroborate the effectiveness of the selection method. In the experiment, it was also found that cutting-out from the cutter contact position can improve the surface quality in the directions of non-optimal range, and the milling force and chips shape will vary with the change of the feed direction.

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Data availability

The datasets used or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Code availability

Not applicable.

Abbreviations

OXYZ :

tool coordinate system

O w X w Y w Z w :

processing coordinate system

PX c Y c Z c :

tool contact coordinate system

f :

tool feed direction

N :

down and up milling coefficient

s :

toolpath stepover

R :

tool radius

e :

cutting depth

κ :

axial position angle

θ :

radial position angle

θ s :

phase difference

β :

feed direction angle

α p :

machined inclination angle

λ :

horizontal rotation angle

Di :

reference point on CWE

Z i :

the Z coordinate at any reference point

[T Z], [T X]:

rotation matrices around Z and X

V f :

feed rate

V c :

cutting speed

φ, φ` :

speed proportional dimensionless number and it’s first derivative

n :

spindle speed

z n :

tooth number

f z :

feed per tooth

CWE:

Cutter Workpiece Engagement

P:

Cutter contact point

A, B, C:

Intersection points of CWE boundaries

D, D`:

Intersection points between CWE boundaries and the inner circle

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Funding

This research was funded by Projects of the International Cooperation and Exchanges for National Science Foundation of China (Grant Number 51720105009) and the National Key Research and Development Project of China (Grant Number 2019YFB1704800).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Advanced Manufacturing and Intelligent Technology, Ministry of Education, Harbin University of Science &Technology, Harbin, 150080, People’s Republic of China

    Anshan Zhang, Xianli Liu, Caixu Yue & Rongyi Li

  2. George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA

    Steven Y. Liang

  3. KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 25175, Stockholm, Sweden

    Lihui Wang

Authors
  1. Anshan Zhang
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  2. Xianli Liu
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  3. Caixu Yue
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Contributions

Anshan Zhang: conceptualization, methodology, software, writing — original draft preparation. Xian-Li Liu: funding acquisition, project administration, writing — review and editing. Cai-Xu Yue: data curation, resources, writing — review and editing. Rong-Yi Li: data curation, investigation, visualization. Steven Y. Liang: writing — review and editing. Lihui Wang: writing — review and editing.

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Correspondence to Anshan Zhang.

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Zhang, A., Liu, X., Yue, C. et al. Velocity effect sensitivity analysis of ball-end milling Ti-6Al-4 V. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 118, 3963–3982 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-021-08049-4

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