High-speed and high-accuracy plunge cutting for vertical walls

In metal cutting, a vertical wall is generally cut by end milling. The wall machined by an end mill, however, has low accuracy owing to the bending of the end mill by cutting forces, especially in the case of a deep wall. Plunge cutting carried out using a shoulder-type milling cutter is widely used for cutting vertical walls because of its high-accuracy. In this study, high-speed plunge cutting, at a cutting speed of over 1000 m/min, was carried out on gray cast iron FC250 using cBN inserts, and plain carbon steel S45C was also cut using a TiC-added Al2O3 ceramic tool at a cutting speed of up to 900 m/min. The results show that the surface machined by high-speed plunge cutting has greater accuracy than that cut by conventional end milling. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.