An innovative CAD-based simulation of ball-end milling in microscale

Abstract

As small size and complex metal machining components demand increases, cutting processes in microscale become necessary. Ball-end milling is a commonly used finishing process, which nowadays can be applied in the microscale size. Surface quality and dimensional accuracy are two basic parameters that affect small size components in their assembly and functionality. Thus, good quality can be achieved by optimizing the cutting conditions of the procedure. This study presents a 3D simulation model of ball-end milling in microscale developed in a commercial CAD software and its optical and computing results. These carried out results are resumed to surface topomorphy, surface roughness, chip geometry and cutting forces calculations that arising during the cutting process. A great number of simulations were performed in a milling machine centre, applying the discretized kinematics of the procedure and the final results were compared with measurements of Al7075-T651 experiments.