The Effect of Cutting Parameters and Vibration Amplitude on Cutting Forces in Vibration-Assisted Side Milling Process of Al7022 Aluminum Alloy

Reduction of cutting force in a machining process offers several advantages including increase in tool life, and improvement in the quality of the machined surface. One the new techniques for reducing cutting force relates to ultrasonic vibration assisted machining. In the present paper, one-dimensional ultrasonic vibration-assisted side milling process of Al7022 aluminum alloy has been studied. In order to investigate the effect of cutting speed, feed rate, radial depth of cut, and vibration amplitude on three cutting force components and their resultant, a special experimental setup has been designed and established which applies one dimensional ultrasonic vibration to work piece. Applying the ultrasonic vibrations on milling process, affects mostly on feed component of cutting force which is unidirectional with the work piece vibration, and decreases it by 33.5% in average. Decrease in cutting speed and increase in vibration amplitude, results to increase the separation of tool and work piece from each other in a portion of each vibration cycle, and larger decrease of the feed force. The average decrease of the resultant cutting force in ultrasonic-assisted milling process is 10.8%.