Thermomechanical modelling of oblique cutting and experimental validation

An analytical approach is used to model oblique cutting process. The material characteristics such as strain rate sensitivity, strain hardening and thermal softening are considered. The chip formation is supposed to occur mainly by shearing within a thin band called primary shear zone. The analysis is limited to stationary flow and the material flow within the primary shear zone is modelled by using a one-dimensional approach. Thermomechanical coupling and inertia effects are accounted for. The chip flow angle is determined by the assumption that the friction force on the tool face is collinear to the chip flow direction. At the chip-tool interface, the friction condition can be affected by the important heating induced by the large values of pressure and sliding velocity. In spite of the complexity of phenomena governing the friction law in machining, a reasonable assumption is to consider that the mean friction coefficient is primarily function of the average temperature at the tool-chip interface. Comparisons between model predictions and experimental results are performed for different values of cutting speed, undeformed chip thickness, normal cutting angle and inclination angle. A critical study is presented in order to show the influences of the input parameters of the model including the normal shear angle, the thickness of the primary shear zone and the pressure distribution at the tool-chip interface. The model permits to predict the cutting forces, the chip flow direction, the contact length between the chip and the tool and the temperature distribution at the tool-chip interface which has an important effect on tool wear. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.