Cyclostationarity approach for monitoring chatter and tool wear in high speed milling

Abstract

Detection of chatter and tool wear is crucial in the machining process and their monitoring is a key issue, for: (1) insuring better surface quality, (2) increasing productivity and (3) protecting both machines and safe workpiece. This paper presents an investigation of chatter and tool wear using the cyclostationary method to process the vibrations signals acquired from high speed milling. Experimental cutting tests were achieved on slot milling operation of aluminum alloy. The experimental set-up is designed for acquisition of accelerometer signals and encoding information picked up from an encoder. The encoder signal is used for re-sampling accelerometers signals in angular domain using a specific algorithm that was developed in LASPI laboratory. The use of cyclostationary on accelerometer signals has been applied for monitoring chatter and tool wear in high speed milling. The cyclostationarity appears on average properties (first order) of signals, on the energetic properties (second order) and it generates spectral lines at cyclic frequencies in spectral correlation. Angular power and kurtosis are used to analyze chatter phenomena. The formation of chatter is characterized by unstable, chaotic motion of the tool and strong anomalous fluctuations of cutting forces. Results show that stable machining generates only very few cyclostationary components of second order while chatter is strongly correlated to cyclostationary components of second order. By machining in the unstable region, chatter results in flat angular kurtosis and flat angular power, such as a pseudo (white) random signal with flat spectrum. Results reveal that spectral correlation and Wigner Ville spectrum or integrated Wigner Ville issued from second-order cyclostationary are an efficient parameter for the early diagnosis of faults in high speed machining, such as chatter, tool wear and bearings, compared to traditional stationary methods. Wigner Ville representation of the residual signal shows that the energy corresponding to the tooth passing decreases when chatter phenomenon occurs. The effect of the tool wear and the number of broken teeth on the excitation of structure resonances appears in Wigner Ville presentation.