Research on the minimum cutting thickness of variable density micro-texture ball-end milling cutter

The critical cutting thickness determines the minimum cutting amount of the tool for the workpiece material, which indirectly affects the machined surface quality of the workpiece and the manufacturing accuracy of key components. It is of great significance to study the minimum cutting thickness of a ball-end milling cutter based on a variable distribution density micro-texture model. Therefore, in this paper, the ball-end milling cutter is taken as the research object, and the variable distribution density micro-texture model is established. Based on the stick-slip friction theory, a theoretical prediction model is established for the minimum cutting thickness of titanium alloy. This model considers different forms of friction in the tool-chip contact area and takes into account the influence of the cutting-edge radius and the geometric parameters of the micro-texture. Based on the machined surface quality of the workpiece, an experimental method for solving the minimum cutting thickness is proposed for milling titanium alloy with a variable distribution density micro-texture ball-end milling cutter. The theoretical prediction model of minimum cutting thickness is verified by finite element simulation and milling tests. The results show that the minimum cutting thickness increases with an increase in the radius of the cutting edge. The error between the theoretical value and the experimental results is less than 10%, which fully verifies the accuracy of the theoretical model of the minimum cutting thickness of the variable distribution density micro-texture ball-end milling cutter.