SURFACE ROUGHNESS AND CUTTING POWER ON BLACKWOOD AND REDWOOD PLANING

In wood machining, the chip formation process consequently brings a change in cutting forces, as well in the specific cutting energy, i.e., finally on the cutting power. Being in practice difficult the measure of cutting forces or the specific energy at the production line, monitoring the electrical output of the power unit is a reality. The aim of this research is to evaluate the change of the mean chip thickness over cutting power and the resulting surface roughness, estimating the specific cutting work on planing process for blackwood and redwood samples. The findings lead to conclude a good correlation between cutting power and chip thickness, requiring the cutting process more power when more feed speed is applied. For the surface roughness, the results presented changes with the chip thickness, and a better surface quality was found with the dense blackwood lumber.