Cutting force estimation in sculptured surface milling

Cutting force milling models developed up to now are mostly used for planar milling using end-mills. Only a reduced number of models applying ball-end mills have been developed. Furthermore these models usually only consider horizontal surface machining, even though the main application of ball-end mills is sculptured surface machining. This article proposes a model that is able to estimate the cutting forces in inclined surfaces machined both up-milling and down-milling. For this purpose a semi-mechanistic model has been developed that calculates the cutting forces based on a set of coefficients which depend on the material, the tool, the cutting conditions, the machining direction and the slope of the surface. A coordinate transformation has been included in order to consider the slope milling case with different cutting directions. The model has been tested on two materials, an aluminum alloy A17075-T6 and a 52 HRC tool steel AISI H13. Validation tests have been carried out on inclined planes using different slopes and different machining directions. The results provide errors below 10% in most of the cases and both the value and shape of the predicted forces adjust the measured cutting force. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.