Mechanism to suppress regenerative chatter vibration due to the effect of air-cutting and multiple regeneration during low frequency vibration cutting

Abstract

Recently, the application of low frequency vibration has been attempted in the turning process. The tool is vibrated in the feed direction by numerical control to break up long continuous chips that adversely affect the surface quality and tool wear, etc., by generating a duration of cutting edge leaving workpiece. In order to achieve higher machining efficiency in vibration cutting, however, it is necessary to focus on chatter stability. When chattering occurs, a higher frequency chatter vibration is superimposed on the low-frequency tool vibration caused by the feed motion of the servo drive. However, the chatter amplitude decreases due to system damping, because the cutting force does not act in the air-cutting section of vibration cutting. In addition, tool displacement is regenerated not only before one spindle rotation, but also before two or more rotations in vibration cutting. Therefore, the application of low frequency vibration has an important influence on the chatter stability. The purpose of this study is to reveal the detailed effects of vibration conditions on the stability limit, and identify the vibration conditions that achieve high chatter stability. We consider the effect of the air-cutting and multi-rotation delayed regeneration described above, in which chatter displacement occurring more than two spindle rotations before is regenerated, and analyze regenerative chatter vibration during vibration cutting in the frequency domain. In this study, the phase difference φ of tool motion in vibration cutting is focused as an important vibration condition parameter that affects the stability limit. In the conventional condition (φ = π), the air-cutting ratio is limited to a relatively low value, and only the dynamic displacements before one and two spindle revolutions are regenerated. On the other hand, setting φ appropriately under the condition φ≠π, the air-cutting ratio is increased. Furthermore, the dynamic displacement is regenerated not only before one and two spindle rotations but also before three or more spindle rotations. These results indicate that proper setting of the phase difference φ is effective in suppressing regenerative chatter vibration due to the effects of both the air-cutting phenomenon and multi-rotation delay. Finally, cutting experiments show that the phase difference φ specified by the analysis was effective in suppressing chatter vibration. In summary, the application of low frequency vibration with an appropriately set phase difference φ is an effective strategy for suppressing chatter vibration without reducing the material removal rate in the turning process.