Modeling Cutter Swept Angle at Cornering Cut

Abstract

When milling concave corners, cutter load increases momentarily and fluctuates severely due to concentration and uneven distribution of material stock. This abrupt change of cutter load produces undesirable machining results such as wavy machined surface and cutter breakage. An important factor for studying cutter load in 2.5D pocket milling is the instantaneous Radial Depth of Cut (RDC). However, previous work on RDC under different corner-cutting conditions is lacking. In this paper, we overview typical work done by other researchers on cornering cut, followed by presenting our study on RDC for different corner shapes. In our work, we express RDC mathematically in terms of the instantaneous cutter engage angle which is defined as Cutter Swept Angle (CSA). An analytical approach for modeling CSA is explained. Finally, examples are shown to demonstrate that the proposed CSA modeling method can give an accurate prediction of cutter load pattern at cornering cut.