Effects of tool flank wear on orthogonal cutting process of aluminum alloy

The tool flank begins to wear out as soon as cutting process proceeds. Cutting parameters such as cutting forces and cutting temperature will vary with increasing degree of flank wear. In order to reveal the relationship between them, the theoretical situations of cutting process were analyzed considering the tool flank wear effect. The variation rules of cutting force, residual stress and temperature distributions along with the tool flank wear were analyzed comparing with the sharp tool tip. Through finite element simulation method, affections of the tool flank wear value VB on cutting forces, residual stress and temperature distributions were analyzed. A special result in this simulation is that the thrust force is more sensitive to tool flank wear, which can be used as a recognition method of tool condition monitoring. The finite element simulation analysis result agrees well with the experimental measuring data in public literatures and some experiments made also by the authors.