Design and optimization of end mills with special geometries for high productivity and their use in different applications

Official URL: https://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b2583796_(Table of contents)

Machining processes, especially milling operation, are widely used in production due to high flexibility, quality, versatility, repeatability, precision and efficiency. The manufacturing industry is demanding shorter delivery times, competitive prices and higher product quality. In order to meet these requirements in a machining process, increased material removal rate (MRR), dimensional accuracy, limited form and surface tolerances during stable cutting conditions should be reached. In order to achieve these goals, lower cutting forces and stable cutting conditions are the significant constraints. In milling process, reduction in cutting forces and having stable cutting condition, improves the efficiency and part quality. For this purpose, it is important to be able to design the cutting tool geometry (end mill) with respect to the process mechanics, dynamics and geometrical properties. At this point, special tools can provide significant advantages. These tools are used rarely in industry for higher productivity purposes. Moreover, the design basis of special geometry tools is usually based on user experiments rather than process analysis in term of mechanics and dynamics. Recently, there are plenty of research works on enhancement of milling processes, higher productivity and optimization of cutting conditions. However, there are a few works focusing on the design and application of special geometry milling tools and there are significant gaps in this field. The aim of this project is the development of design methodology and investigation of optimized geometry for special milling tools used in milling operations. The designed milling tools will be used in different kinds of milling operations and achievements will be presented within the study. In this study, the mechanics and dynamics of the special milling tools (serrated and crest cut end mill) will be investigated in detail. The developed models will be verified by experimental studies. Considering the results from all these models, the behavior of the tools in different conditions will be examined and efficient end mills will be designed by employing optimization methods. An important contribution of the study is the development of methods for optimizing the geometry of special milling tools. Thus, for any milling condition, a specific tool can be designed and implemented. With the models to be developed in this project, the possible problems regarding the special end mills can be predicted and more systematic and efficient solutions can be offered for each operation. Moreover, the application of the special end mills in different processes and operations such as robotic milling, turn-milling, and thin-wall machining will be investigated in this study. The adaption of the obtained models to these processes can be used to predict cutting forces and the stability of the operations. These models can be used to improve the efficiency and productivity of operations by selecting proper tools.