Microstructure-level force prediction model for micro-milling of multi-phase materials

A mechanistic model for the micro-endmilling process is developed that explicitly accounts for the different phases while machining heterogeneous materials. It is shown that frequencies in the cutting force signal higher than those that can be explained by the kinematics of the process can be explained by considering the multiple phases in the material. Experiments are performed on two compositions of ductile iron, pure ferrite and pearlite workpieces. These experiments show that the nature of the variation in the ductile iron cutting force signals can be attributed to the mixture of the phases. Additionally, simulation studies show that the frequency component of the variation is related to the spacing of the secondary (ferrite) phase and the magnitude of this component is determined by the size of the secondary phase particles.