Effect of radial depth on vibration and surface roughness during face milling of austenitic stainless steel

This paper studies the influence of radial depth on vibration, chip formation and surface roughness during face milling of AISI304 austenitic stainless steel with indexable cemented carbide milling cutters. The amplitude of vibration acceleration increased with the increasing radial depth up to 80 mm. And the domain vibration frequency varied with the radial depth. In this paper, three types of chips were found: C shape, long shape and spiral shape. The minimum surface roughness value occurred when the radial depth equalled 40 mm in the experiment. Irregular changes of chip curl radius and chip thickness could be attributed to different numbers of alternately engaged teeth when the feed and speed were fixed. Surface roughness is related to forced vibration and chip formation. Radial depth with different numbers of alternately engaged teeth could significantly influence the forced vibration, chip formation, and surface roughness. © 2011 Tianjin University and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.