The Influence of Insert Mounting Errors on the Surface Roughness of 1.0503 Steel in Face Milling

This article looked at how insert mounting errors affect the cutting tool performance in the face milling of 1.0503 steel. This study was conducted for 490-050Q22-08M inserts mounted in a Sandvik Coromant 490-050Q22-08M CoroMill cutter attached to an AVIA VMC 800 vertical milling center. A 3D geometrical model of the cutter was developed to determine the engagement of the particular inserts in the material removal process at different feeds per tooth. The test results showed that, at feeds ranging from 0.02 mm/tooth to 0.06 mm/tooth, only three out of five inserts took part in the face milling process, while at feeds higher than 0.12 mm/tooth, all the inserts mounted in the cutter body were engaged. The relative displacements in the tool-workpiece system were measured along the axis of rotation of the tool using a Renishaw XL-80 laser interferometer. The vibration signals recorded during cutting confirmed that there was a clear relationship between the number of inserts engaged in the process and the root mean square, the arithmetic mean, and the DC component. Multiple 2D scans of the face milled surface to measure parameters Ra and Rt helped determine the feed range where the cutting process was stable. The conducted studies allowed for the identification of optimal operating ranges for a tool with parameterized errors in the mounting of inserts within the tool body. The influence of these mounting errors, in correlation with the feed per tooth, on the surface roughness of 1.0503 steel was presented and compared with five other materials.