A closed form mechanistic cutting force model for helical peripheral milling of ductile metallic alloys

A closed form mechanistic model is developed for cutting forces in helical peripheral milling (endmilling) of ductile metallic alloys. This paper presents an alternative derivation, using the frontal chip area, to describe two series of cutting force expressions-one using a Heaviside unit step function and the other using a Fourier series expansion. A specific advantage of the present work is highlighted by deriving analytical expressions for sensitivity coefficients required to analytically propagate the uncertainty in the cutting-force model parameters. Another advantage is that even very small radial immersions can be used to derive cutting coefficients reliably, along with their variances. The aforementioned analytical investigations are applied to a series of experimental cutting tests to estimate the force-model cutting coefficients. Experimental investigations include the study of a tool having radial runout. Finally, confidence intervals are placed on predicted forces which experimentally verify the validity of the proposed force model. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.