Experimental Study of a Novel Ultrasonic Vibration-Assisted Structure for Radial Milling

A novel ultrasonic vibration-assisted structure for radial milling is proposed, and the ultrasonic vibration-assisted radial milling (UVARM) is further studied in terms of theoretical model and milling experiment. The motion and feed characteristics of UVARM are also analyzed. A special fixture is designed to construct the experimental platform of UVARM, in which the vibration is applied to the workpiece along the radial direction. The preliminary results show that with the increase of spindle speed, the milling force in both conventional cutting (CC) and UVARM experiments tends to increase. In addition, when the feed per tooth increased, the milling force increased. With the involvement of ultrasonic vibration, the milling force is significantly reduced, with the maximum reduction reaching 20%. The comprehensive analysis showed that there was a decrease of about 10% to 25% in the ultrasonic case compared with the conventional method. It is also found that UVARM can inhibit the production of a built-up edge. With the ultrasonic vibration, the burrs on the processed surface are also reduced, and the grooves left by tool traces are shallower. Compared with conventional milling, the roughness value of the machined surface obtained by UVARM is reduced by 10% to 32%. The experimental results also show that UVARM can effectively improve the dimensional accuracy of the workpiece.