An experimental study on dynamics and stability of miniature end mills

Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.223.869

Miniature end mills with sizes in the order of 1 mm in diameter are used in several industries for generation of small features with high precision. As in case of standard size end mills, chatter stability can be an important problem in these applications as well, and it is the focus of this paper. Dynamics and stability analyses need frequency response function (FRF) of the tool. There are several practical problems in measuring miniature tool FRFs. First of all, it is not possible to excite the tool tip using an impact hammer due to the small size. In addition, miniature tools have very high natural frequencies which are difficult to excite and measure. An indirect measurement approach for miniature milling tool dynamics is used. Another important problem with miniature tools is the detection of chatter. Although stability diagrams can be used for selection of stable conditions, cutting tests proved that chatter detection for miniature tools is very challenging.