Experimental investigation of specific cutting forces and estimation of the heat partitioning under increasing tool wear in machining nickel-based super alloy IN 718

Presented are an experimental setup and affiliated methodology to measure the specific cutting forces in the milling process with proceeding tool wear at simplified orthogonal milling kinematics. The cutting forces, cutter rotation angle and chip temperature are acquired by a time sensitive measuring system consisting of a synchronized dynamometer, ratio pyrometer and spindle encoder. The approach allows the accurate acquisition of cutting forces under defined engagement conditions and thus constitutes a valuable basis for cutting force modelling and tool wear monitoring approaches. The results show uniformly and linearly increasing forces over the entire range of undeformed chip thickness due to wear. Besides a mechanical view on the cutting process, also the thermal domain was included into the analysis. Therefore, a ratio pyrometer was used as part of the synchronized measurement system tracking the chips backside temperature in order to estimate a virtually continuous heat flow into the chip. This heat flow increased with wear and process power, which indicates that the chip's temperature can be used as process monitoring variable for tool wear.