Iterative from error prediction for side-milling of thin-walled parts

Deformation is an unavoidable phenomenon in a thin-walled milling operation, which causes the radial cutting depth to deviate from the initial position and change the tool-workpiece meshing boundary. Milling force is an important factor in the deformation; thus, the phenomenon of machining deformation mechanism is revealed and a machining error prediction model based on the force-deformation coupling relationship is developed in this paper. Discrete micro-cutting disks of the thin-walled parts take into account the deformations and milling cutting force of different contact relationships in the cutting area. The tool-workpiece contact relationship (single-flute cutting and double-flute cutting) is determined by different cutting parameters and the deflection of thin-walled parts is introduced. A detail iterative strategy is developed to calculate the milling force after deformation and the tool-workpiece meshing boundary. By modifying the instantaneous chip thickness of each micro-cutting disk, a new force-deformation coupling relationship and a time-based deformation matrix of different contact relationships are obtained. The machining error is calculated by considering the part deformation and the surface generation mechanism. After finishing systematic experiments, a comprehensive comparison between the model in mechanical prediction and experiments proves that the model captures the material removal mechanism that produces machining error. The results show that the proposed method can effectively predict the machining error.