Stability analysis in milling of thin-walled workpieces with emphasis on the structural effect

Abstract

Regenerative chatter easily occurs in milling and has become the common limitation to achieve good surface quality and high productivity. For the purpose of chatter avoidance, the structural effect of the thin-walled part should be considered for the milling chatter stability analysis for the optimization of axial cutting depth and spindle speed pairs. The main objective of this paper is to examine the link between the structural modes (i.e. modal shapes) and the chatter stability limits in the case of finish milling thin-walled workpieces. In this paper, the dynamic stability of the milling process of thin-walled workpieces is investigated through a two-degree-of-freedom mechanical model. The mathematical relationship between the critical axial depth and the thin-walled part modal shapes is deduced and an optimal calculation process of milling stability lobes is presented. Peripheral milling of aluminium alloy (2A70 Al) plates is carried out on a computer numerically controlled (CNC) five-axis super high-speed machining centre to validate the method. The experimental results agree with the prediction by the presented method. Additionally, the experimental results show that the cutting stability is also influenced by the modal frequencies of the thin-walled part, which have a great influence on the milling stability analysis when the tool passing frequency (i.e. the inverse of the tooth passing period) harmonics are close to the modal frequencies of the part. The presented method is effective in the prediction of milling chatter limits in the thin-walled case for the optimization of machining parameters.