Cutting force prediction considering force–deflection coupling in five-axis milling with fillet-end cutter

With the increasing demand for higher quality and performance of equipment and assembly in aerospace, shipbuilding, medical and other fields, the machining accuracy of parts is facing higher requirements. It is particularly important to predict the cutting force accurately, which is the main physical quantity in the machining process and basis of process inspection and quality control. In this paper, the cutting force model in five-axis milling with fillet-end cutter is proposed, which reveals the law of force–deflection coupling. Firstly, the initial cutter deflection model induced by the ideal cutting force ignoring the effect of deflection is built based on analysis of the geometric characteristics of fillet-end cutter. Then, the undeformed chip thickness model is educed considering the cutter posture and cutter deflection. Further, the iterative method is utilized to resolve the coupling relationship between cutter deflection and cutting force. Finally, the cutting force model under force–deflection coupling is established for achieving more accurate prediction. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed cutting force model, the milling experiment is carried out on a five-axis milling center. The measured cutting force values are utilized to inspect the accuracy of prediction models considering and not considering force–deflection coupling, respectively. The results show that the proposed method could improve the prediction accuracy of cutting force, which show the effectiveness of taking force–deflection coupling law into consideration clearly. The influence of cutter posture on cutting force is analyzed using the proposed cutting force model. The cutting force decreases with the increase in lead angle or tilt angle, and the influence of tilt angle is greater than that of lead angle under experimental conditions of five-axis milling using the set process parameters.