A New Identification Method of Specific Cutting Coefficients for Ball End Milling

The paper presents a new and accurate strategy for estimation of cutting coefficients for ball-end milling of free form surfaces in 3- and 5-axis operations. Since the cutting coefficients are not constant along the tool axis in the ball part of the cutter, the tool is considered by dividing the ball region into thin disks. In order to find the contribution of each disk to resultant cutting force, an experimental setup is designed to cut the workpiece while only that disk is in engaged with the workpiece. It is shown that this method is more efficient than common methods of mechanistic identification of cutting constants that are available in literature. The derivations are improved by considering the helix angle and cutting edge length to enhance the accuracy of the estimated cutting coefficients. Validation of the proposed strategy is demonstrated experimentally by simulation of cutting forces and comparing the results with conventional methods of identification of cutting coefficients that have been proposed in the literature. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V.