Time-varying vibration characteristics and surface topography of thin-walled cylinders during machining operations

Abstract

Machining thin-walled cylindrical workpieces is frequently subjected to vibration due to their low rigidity, resulting in complicated surface topography. This paper investigates the vibration characteristics of thin-walled cylinder turning as well as its effect on the machined surface topography comprehensively by means of numerical simulations and experimental measurements. It is seen that the circumferential shell mode of vibration exhibits higher sensitivity to the variation of the wall thickness than the axial beam mode. The features of the vibration characteristics as well as the machined surface textures of thin-walled workpieces are shifting in a cutting pass. The underlying physical mechanism behind this phenomenon was interpreted. By extracting the critical vibration frequency and surface waviness measurement along the cutting path, a hybrid physics and data-driven surface topography was reconstructed, which showed consistency with the real surface topography. The formulated correlation between the vibration characteristics and the surface topography contributes to a holistic understanding of dynamic behaviors of thin-walled cylinder machining, and a tool that utilizes vibration to produce functional microstructures on cylindrical surfaces.