Investigation of residual stresses and workpiece distortion during high-feed milling of slender stainless steel components

In high-feed milling, the workpiece surface is subjected to high thermo-mechanical loads, which leads to excessive changes in residual stresses and thus affects the quality of the product. In this work, the influence of tool geometry and cutting speed on the residual stress state and the resulting workpiece distortion was investigated. Machining tests were performed by face milling of slender parts made of low sulfur stainless steel X2CrNiMo17-12-2. The results showed that the macro-geometry of the tool has a major influence on the surface topography and residual stresses. The cutting edge radii have barely any influence on the residual stresses under the conditions investigated.