Factors such as environmental requirements and fuel efficiency have pushed aerospace industry to develop reduced-weight engine designs and thereby light-weight and thin-walled components. As component wall thickness gets thinner and the mechanical structures weaker, the structure becomes more sensitive for vibrations during milling operations. Demands on cost efficiency increase and new ways of improving milling operations must follow.

Historically, there have been two “schools” explaining vibrations in milling. One states that the entry angle in which the cutting insert hits the work piece is of greater importance than the exit angle. The other states that the way the cutter leaves the work piece is of greater importance than the cutter entry. In an effort to shed some light over this issue, a substantial amount of experiments were conducted. Evaluations were carried out using different tools, different tool-to-workpiece offset positions, and varying workpiece wall overhang. The resultant force, the force components, and system vibrations have been analyzed.

The first part of this work shows the differences in force behavior for three tool-to-workpiece geometries while varying the wall overhang of the workpiece. The second part studies the force behavior during the exit phase for five different tool-to-workpiece offset positions while the overhang is held constant. The workpiece alloy throughout this work is Inconel 718.

As a result of the project a spread sheet milling stability prediction model is developed and presented. It is based on available research in chatter theory and predicts the stability for a given set of variable input parameters.