Study of micromilling parameters and processes for thin wall fabrications

Abstract

Thin wall fabrication is a long lasting hot research topic in the precision manufacturing fields. There is still a lack of studies in key machining parameters and qualities for thin wall fabrications. In this paper, micromilling parameters and processes are comprehensively studied for thin walls fabrications considering the dimensional errors and surface quality. First, the influences of key process parameters in micromilling as the feed engagement fz, radial depth of cut ae and axial depth of cut ap on milling forces, surface roughness and dimensional errors of thin walls are analyzed by single-factor finite element simulations and experiments. The reasonable micromilling parameters are identified by the single-factor studies. Second, contrast experiments have been conducted to evaluate the effects of multi-axial feed engagement on dimensional errors. It turns out that there exists the appropriate feed times for achieving smaller dimensional errors of thin walls with the same height. Then, thin wall fabrication experiments have been conducted. The suitable feed times identified by the study are 2 and 3 for thin walls made of the material brass H59 with the width of 50 μm, height of 300 μm and 900 μm, respectively. The correspondingly dimensional errors are 0.73 μm and 5.95 μm, respectively. The study indicates that both micromilling parameters and feed times need to be separately optimized for the fabrication of thin walls with good dimensional accuracies.