The research of surface waviness control method for 5-axis flank milling

This paper presents a comprehensive control method of surface waviness for 5-axis flank milling, reducing cutting force variation, and improving unstable rotation state of rotary axis to suppress low-frequency milling chatter. We propose a cutting force-sweep area model and define an average cutting force term, so that the control of cutting force turns into sweep area rate (SAR) control, realized by feed rate. The feed rate might be dynamic, adjusted to make the corresponding SAR constant. In addition, the method can improve the unstable rotation state, such as discontinuous or reciprocating rotation in micro angle, by means of decomposing the unstable rotation to more micro continuous rotation or tool axis orientation adjustments based on the geometric relationship of tool axis and machining tolerance. Finally, a series of comparison experiments were conducted on a 5-axis machine tool. From the comparison of cutting force and surface scan, the results showed that the control method could suppress low-frequency milling chatter and reduce surface waviness effectively.