Study on wear mechanism of milling cutter and hole-making quality in ball helical milling process

In order to deeply understand the wear mechanism of the ball end mill in the helical milling process, the TiAlN coated carbide ball end mill is used for the machining of titanium alloy under dry cutting conditions, focusing the influence of tool wear on the cutting process and hole-making quality. Firstly, the geometry of the ball end mill and the material removal process during the helical milling process are discussed. Secondly, based on the different zones, tool microscope, electron microscope, and energy spectrum are used to detect the tool wear, so as to clarify the tool wear mechanism, and then explore the relationship between axial cutting force, radial cutting force, cutting temperature, and tool wear, thus the influence of the tool wear degree on the cutting process is analyzed. Finally, the changes of hole-making quality with different tool wear degrees are studied from the perspectives of geometry, machining defects, and exit burr of the hole-making, respectively. The results show that in order to get better hole-making quality, the magnitude of cutting force and cutting temperature should be controlled to increase the tool life in the normal wear stage.