Tool posture dependent chatter suppression in five-axis milling of thin-walled workpiece with ball-end cutter

In aerospace industry, five-axis ball-end milling is widely used for flexible thin-walled aerospace parts by considering the process mechanics. A new analytical method is proposed to investigate the effects of the change of tool posture, especially lead and tilt angle, on chatter stability in milling. In this method, the dynamic cutter-workpiece engagement regions, which are essential to predict dynamic cutting forces and investigate chatter stability of the thin-walled workpiece, are determined considering the dynamic machining conditions. Then, according to dynamic cutter-workpiece engagement region data, the dynamic cutting force model considering the effects of lead and tilt angle is developed in machining the thin-walled aerospace parts with ball-end cutter. Subsequently, the milling chatter stability model is established based on the dynamic cutting force model, and the milling stability limits are determined in different lead and tilt angles. Finally, the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method are verified by experiments with ball-end cutter in five-axis machining center. The results are shown that the predicted values well match with the experimental results.