ANALYSIS OF THERMAL PHENOMENA IN MILLING PROCESS

Abstract

Milling is one of the most conventional machining processes used in the industry. The cutting edge of the mill tooth periodically enters and exits from the contact with the workpiece, which leads to periodic heating and cooling during machining. This process is influenced by many output parameters and one of the most important parameters is the temperature because it affects the tool wear and tool life. Also, during the milling process the cross-section of the chip is variable. Cutting tools are expensive and have a duration that is measured in minutes and therefore, predicting temperature and tool wear during the machining process is of the great importance for the understanding and optimization of process parameters. To determine cutting temperature or temperature fields in end milling different methods can be used. During the last decades various experimental methods were developed for measuring cutting temperature. Measuring temperature with infrared thermal imaging camera is most suitable method concerning capturing values of temperature fields. An experimental approach to studying the cutting process is expensive and time-consuming, especially when a wide range of tool geometry, material, and machining parameters are included. Because of these difficulties, alternative approaches such as mathematical simulations have been developed. Numerical methods are most commonly used in those mathematical simulations. In the research field of cutting process, the finite element method is regarded as a very useful tool to study the cutting process of materials. The aim of this paper is the modeling and simulation of milling predictive temperature in the cutting zone by using the finite element method. The right choice of finite element software is very important in determining the scope and quality of the analysis that will be performed. In order to predict the occurrence of thermal processing milling was used software package Third Wave AdvantEdge. AdvantEdge contains a user-friendly interface and offers the possibility of creating new tool and workpiece geometries within the program and also to import complex geometries form other CAD files. 3D model of the workpiece and end mill was created in the software package SolidWorks. AdvantEdge also allows users to import complex geometries and have extensive material library and allows specifying new materials uses adaptive meshing to increase the accuracy of solution. Workpiece material AISI 4340 steel and tool material Carbide-General were selected from the library of 3D materials. For proper cutting conditions we have presented the results of simulation-based on which the influence of feed per tooth on the temperature in the cutting zone is analyzed.