Simulation of milling tool vibration trajectories along changing engagement conditions

This paper presents a simulation system, which is able to model engagement conditions as a syntactical geometric model along arbitrary NC-programs. This modeling approach allows the feedback of tool deflections into the model of the chip form, which enables the simulation of regenerative tool vibrations along changing engagement conditions. Methods from the field of computer graphics allow a fast analysis of the chip forms as well as a fast cutting force calculation, which is essential to speed up this time-domain simulation system. Experiments show a good agreement of calculated and measured tool trajectories even along sudden changes of the radial immersion. Furthermore, a geometric model of the workpiece is applied, which is able to represent the surface structure resulting from a vibrating cutting tool. Thereby, chatter marks as well as the effects that occur along changing engagement conditions can be modelled and rendered realistically. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.