Research on the modeling of burr formation process in micro-ball end milling operation on Ti–6Al–4V

Burrs generated along the finished edges and surfaces in micro-milling operation have significant impact on the surface quality and operational performance of the finished parts and microstructures. In order to obtain a better recognition of burr generation process, 3-dimensional micro-ball end milling operation FEM models on Ti–6Al–4V have been established. As a result, a newfound type of burr lying on the slot base has been detected. According to their generating locations, burrs discovered in the simulation are classified into four types: entrance burr, exit burr, top burr, and slot base burr. Their formation processes, especially the generation procedure of slot base burr, are carefully investigated and analyzed. Furthermore, the correlation between cutting parameters and top burr sizes in micro-ball end milling is investigated. At last, effective validation experiments for the proposed model are conducted and good agreements are achieved in the morphologies of burrs between the experiments and simulations. It can be concluded that the adoption of a small ratio of axial depth of cut to the mill radius has a significant effect in the reduction of top burr generation in micro-ball end milling operation.