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Materials Today: Proceedings 4 (2017) 5215–5221 www.materialstoday.com/proceedings

6th International Conference of Materials Processing and Characterization (ICMPC 2016)

Side Milling Machining Simulation Using Finite Element Analysis:

Prediction of Cutting Forces
Mebrahitom A.1, a, Wong Choon2,b , A. Azhari3,c
1,2,3
University Malaysia Pahang, Faculty of Manufacturing Engineering, Pekan, Pahang.

Abstract

In this study, a side End milling operation of Aluminum 6010 was investigated. A two flute HSS flat end mill was used to predict
the cutting forces using Finite Element Analysis. The finite element analysis was conducted based on the interaction between
Aluminum work piece and high speed steel tool cutter. The cutting forces were measured by using dynamometer during the side
milling process to validate the simulated forces. The results between simulation and experiment indicated that the predicted and
the measured cutting force of milling process are in a good agreement. In this study, a side End milling operation of Aluminum
6010 was investigated. A two flute HSS flat end mill was used to predict the cutting forces using Finite Element Analysis. The
finite element analysis was conducted based on the interaction between Aluminum work piece and high speed steel tool cutter.
The cutting forces were measured by using dynamometer during the side milling process to validate the simulated forces. The
results between simulation and experiment indicated that the predicted and the measured cutting force of milling process are in a
good agreement.
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and/or Peer-review under responsibility of 6th International Conference of Materials Processing and Characterization
(ICMPC 2016).

Keywords:Abacus, FEA, Milling, Dynamometer, Force, Simulation

1. Introduction

Side Milling is one of the material removal applications to produce prismatic contour parts in die and mould
industries. In the side milling process, knowledge of the cutting forces allows for the prediction of surface finishes,
tool wear and certain possible generation of chatters in the material removal process. The cutting forces are
produced due to the interaction of the work piece and helical flutes during the milling process[1] .

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2214-7853© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Selection and/or Peer-review under responsibility of 6th International Conference of Materials Processing and Characterization (ICMPC 2016).
5216 Mebrahitom A / Materials Today: Proceedings 4 (2017) 5215–5221

Fundamentally, metal cutting process can be considered as a deformation process where deformation is highly
concentrated in a small zone. Thus, chip formation in milling process can also be simulated using Finite Element
Method (FEM) techniques developed for deformation processes [2]. The main advantage of using such an approach
is to be able to predict chip flow, cutting forces, and especially a distribution of tool temperatures and stresses for
various cutting conditions. Researchers have been taken place to predict accurate cutting forces, most of which were
successful. However, the research works were analytical, requiring in depth and extensive experimental approaches
to determine the mechanistic models available.
In the cutting force prediction of milling operations, several analytical and semi analytical works had been done
by several researchers. Mehemet et al. [1] established milling coefficients from mechanistic models for the
prediction of cutting forces. This was achieved by experimentally identifying the force distributions along the
cutting part of the tool base d on the cutter geometry and cutter parameters. Fontaine et al. [3] used material and
frictional attributes to establish milling forces from an oblique cutting model where the model was based on the
tooth segments. Bin Lin et al. [4] also developed an analytical models of side oblique cutting of milling process to
predict the cutting forces. By considering the pitch angle and the helix angle of each flute and feed velocity, the
differential cutting forces were integrated along the cutting forces to predict the milling forces. The predicted and
measured cutting forces were compared to illustrate the viability of the proposed cutting force model in end milling.
Analytical models are very complex and time consuming method which needs to use advanced mathematical
concepts and analysis. This paper presents a numerical finite element simulation analysis using Abacus/Explicit to
predict the cutting forces of side milling operation. The model includes a material constitutive model and considers
the helix angle of the tool cutter. The cutting forces obtained from simulation are compared with the experimental
data to check the validity of the predicted forces.

2. FEA analysis of the Orthogonal side cutting

The geometry was simplified to a 3D orthogonal Model to ease the computational time and difficulty in
modelling the tool cutter geometry. ABACUS/Explicit simulation software was used for its possibility to
incorporate both the Eulerian (ALE) and the Langragian approaches. The capability of the ABACUS to make a
material flow through the mesh which is independent of the movement of the mesh nodes inside and tangential to
the work piece makes it very suitable the modelling process.
In the numerical study performed, the Johnson–Cook material model was used as the workpiece material model.
The workpiece material was aluminum 6060 alloy and the cutting tool was high speed steel with simple geometry.
The material properties are listed in Table 1. In finite element machining models, it is necessary that a constitutive
material model describes the thermos-visco plastic behaviour of the material. The Johnson–Cook material model
was employed in this study, which is represented by the following equation [5]:

= + 1+ ln 1− (1)
–

where is the equivalent flow stress, ε is the equivalent plastic strain, ɛ and ɛ· is the equivalent plastic strain
rate, /ɛo is the reference equivalent plastic strain rate, T is the workpiece temperature, Tmelt is the material melting
temperature, and Troom is the room temperature. This model is widely used for the analysis of material flow stress,
especially for those materials where flow stress is highly influenced by temperature and strain rate. Johnson–Cook
parameters developed by Lesuer [6] are used in this study, as listed in Table 2 and 3.
The simulation cutting conditions were rake angle (15o), Relief angle (5o ), spindle speed (18336 RPM and
21392 RPM) and depth of cut (2 mm). The cutting forces predicted was compared with the two extreme spindle
condition of the upper and lower limit for the specified material and tool material type obtained from the machinist
hand book.
 Mebrahitom A / Materials Today: Proceedings 4 (2017) 5215–5221 5217

Table 1: Mechanical and physical properties for Aluminium 6061[7]

Tool Work piece

Modulus of Elasticity, E(GPa) 200 GPa 70
Poisson’s ratio, v 0.33 0.3
Density, ρ (Kg/cm3) 7870 2700 kg/m3
Specific Heat capacity, Cp (J/Kg. oc) .477 .885
Thermal conductivity, K (W/m oc) 44.5 167
Melting temperature, T (oc) 1520 582-652
Linear thermal coefficient of expansion, ƹ (µm/m oc ) 12.3 25.2
Displacement at Failure 0.1 0.0001

Table 2: Johnson CookPlasticity material constants of Aluminium 6010 and the Tool [8]
A (MPa) B(MPa) n C m
Aluminium 6061 3.241e8 1.138e8 .42 .002 1.34
HSS tool 375e6 552e6 .457 .014 1.03

Table 3: Johnson Cook Damage material constants of Aluminium 6010 and the Tool
D1 D2 D3 D4 Reference Strain Rate
Aluminium 6061 -0.77 1.45 -0.47 0 1
HSS tool .25 4.38 2.68 0 1

3. Simulation Results

The finite element simulation was performed which as a result can be observed that the temperature distribution
at the shear area and the chip formation are shown in Figure 1. Figure 1a and 1b shows the temperature distribution
when the side milling is performed at 18336 RPM and 21392 RPM respectively. It was shown that the primary and
secondary zones are seen with the highest stress concentration area. In addition to the detailed distribution of
temperature in the shearing area, the chip formation is also shown in Figure 1(c) and (d) for both spindle speed cases.
The tool and the chips formed are the main factors which help the dissipation of heat around the shear zone [9].

Figure 1: Machining simulation showing, (a) 18336 RPM; (b) Temperature distribution at 21392 RPM;
(c) Chip formation at 18336 RPM; (d) Chip formation at 21392 RPM
5218 Mebrahitom A / Materials Today: Proceedings 4 (2017) 5215–5221

4. Experimental Work

The Side Milling experiment set up as shown in Figure 2 was performed on a CNC Makino machine with a
Fanuc controller run by the Master CAM for the process planning. As stated above, the material test was Al 6010
with dimensions 50 mmx 250 x 3 mm. Two flute carbide flat end milling with helix angle 30o , rake angle 5o and
diameter of 12 was used. A three-component force measurement Fx (Feed force),Fy (traverse Force) and,Fz (Axial
force) with 4- Channel Charge Amplifier Type 5070 Ax01 was used. Dyno-ware software was used for the data
acquisition can evaluate all the measured data. The force signals at each channel of the dynamometer are sampled
with twice the tooth passing frequency; hence four samples were collected per pass. The machining operation was
performed at constant feed rate (Ft) 0.04 mm/tooth for the two-cutting speed of 18336 RPM and 21392 RPM.

Figure 2: Experimental Set Up, (a) Side milling; (b) The cutting forces measurement using Dynamometer

The force signals acquired from the dynamometer is shown in Figure 3. The measured forces showed large
fluctuations due to process dynamics and continuous shift between ploughing and shearing dominated cutting during
side milling. There is also the effect of the low sampling rate on the fluctuation of the measured forces. Since there
are only four samples collected in one rotation, detailed force generation within a full rotation could not be observed.
High bandwidth and high sampling frequency force measurement capability is required for better understanding of
the force generation in side-milling.

(a) (b)

Figure 3: Cutting force signals, (a) 18336 RPM; (b) 21392 RPM
 Mebrahitom A / Materials Today: Proceedings 4 (2017) 5215–5221 5219

5. Results and Discussion

Figure 4 shows the radial force (Fx) and tangential force (Fy) generated during the 18336 RPM for the case of
the simulated and experimental machining. The average radial forces (Fx) generated was lower than the tangential
(Fy) in both the simulated and experimental. The average force of the radial force for the simulated and experiment
was 118.4 N and 117.7 N respectively and the tangential forces (Fy) for both the simulated and experimental is 130
N and 160 N respectively. This shows the prediction was successful with 0.52% and 22.5 % error for the average
radial and tangential forces respectively. However, a maximum of 35.44% at a 0.328 second time along the radial
and 41.9% error at a 0.45 second for the tangential force was recorded.

Figure 4: 18336 RPM Radial and tangential forces

It is obvious that tangential force shows the highest cutting force among the three direction of force. This force is
acting in the direction of the cutting tool in which it cuts from inside out in Y-direction. From the result, it can be
inferred that tangential force was the highest because more flute will be get engaged in the cutting process which
resulted in higher cutting force. Furthermore, the more area of the flute was plunged in the cutting process in the
rotating direction so that that higher cutting force was required to remove the materials. The z direction forces were
not considered as the value is insignificant.
Figure 5 shows the same trends as the previous case. The tangential forces are higher than the radial forces. It
was shown that the average predicted percentage error 3.9 % of the radial force (Fx) while it was predicted with a
13.2 % error for the tangential force (Fy). The errors could be the chatter and modeling assumptions that had been
used during the experiment and simulations. The measured forces showed large fluctuations due to process
dynamics and continuous shift between ploughing and shearing dominated cutting during side milling. There is also
effects due to the low sampling rate during the experiment. High bandwidth and high sampling frequency force
measurement capability is required for a better understanding of the force generation in milling. It was observed also
that the higher cutting speed lower cutting forces in both case which is in agreement with the conventional principles.
5220 Mebrahitom A / Materials Today: Proceedings 4 (2017) 5215–5221

Figure 5: 21392 RPM radial and tangential forces

6. Conclusion

The conclusions of the preliminary results are shown as below:

 When the cutting speed was increased, the tangential and radial forces was both reduced when the depth of cut
and feed rate was held as constant.
 The tangential forces are higher than the radial forces for a side milling. It was shown that the average predicted
percentage error 3.9 % of the radial force (Fx) while it was predicted with a 13.2 % error for the tangential force
(Fy).
 The finite element simulation method using Abacus/explicit predicted the cutting force in an acceptable range of
accuracies.

Acknowledgement
The authors would like to appreciate for the financial support from FRGS, RDU150121 of University
Malaysia Pahang.

References

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