An enhanced force model for sculptured surface machining

The ball-end milling process is used extensively in machining of sculpture surfaces in automotive, die/mold, and aerospace industries. In planning machining operations, the process planner has to be conservative when selecting machining conditions with respect to metal removal rate in order to avoid cutter chipping and breakage, or over-cut due to excessive cutter deflection. These problems are particularly important for machining of sculptured surfaces where axial and radial depths of cut are abruptly changing. This article presents a mathematical model that is developed to predict the cutting forces during ball-end milling of sculpture surfaces. The model has the ability to calculate the workpiece/cutter intersection domain automatically for a given cutter path, cutter, and workpiece geometries. In addition to predicting the cutting forces, the model determines the surface topography that can be visualized in solid form. Extensive experiments are performed to validate the theoretical model with measured forces. For complex part geometries, the mathematical model predictions were compared with experimental measurements.