Improving cycle time in sculptured surface machining through force modeling

In this paper, an enhanced mathematical model is presented for the prediction of cutting force system in ball end milling of sculptured surfaces. This force model is also used as the basis for off-line feed rate scheduling along the tool path in order to decrease the cycle time in sculptured surface machining. As an alternative for setting a constant feed rate all along the tool path in rough machining of sculptured surfaces, resultant cutting forces are aimed to be kept under a pre-set threshold value along the tool path by off-line scheduled piecewise variable feed rates. In this paper, it is shown that machining time, depending on complexity of sculptured surfaces, can be decreased significantly by scheduling feed rate along the tool path. The model is tested under various cutting conditions and some of the results are also presented and discussed in the paper.