High-Performance Milling Techniques of Thin-Walled Elements

The paper presents an overview of high-performance milling techniques of thin-walled elements. Currently, the tendency to simplify semi-finished products is used in aviation. In that case even 95% of semi-finished product mass is converted into chips, hence the increasing interest in such techniques as: High Performance Cutting (HPC) and High Speed Cutting (HSC). The aim of the paper was to research high-performance milling techniques of thin-walled elements in reference to conventional machining. The material was the EN AW-7075 T651 aluminium alloy. A thinwalled pocket structure was designed and manufactured. The aspects related to geometric accuracy, surface quality and cutting time were analysed. On the basis of the obtained results, it was found that in case of geometric accuracy associated with the wall deformation, the greatest deformation was obtained after HPC, while the smallest one after HSC. The difference was over 400% (comparing HPC to HSC). A similar relationship was also received for the quality of the machined surface. Analysing the cutting time, the best result was achieved after HPC in reference to HSC and conventional machining. Taking into account all analysed variables, prime solution was a combination of HPC and HSC. Thanks to the use of HSC as a finishing, it is possible to receive high geometric accuracy and quality of the machined surface, while the application of HPC for roughing allows to shorten the cutting time, translating into an increase in the efficiency of the milling process. Conventional machining is slightly less advantageous in terms of geometric accuracy and surface quality and it could possibly be used alternatively with High Speed Cutting, but its weakness is significantly lower efficiency compared to high-performance machining.