Prediction of Cutting Forces in Micro-milling of P-20 Steel by TiAlN-Coated WC Tool: An Analytical Approach

Abstract

Micro-milling is one of the emerging tool-based micro-manufacturing processes to fabricate miniaturized features on different materials. Still, there is a need of enhancement in tooling performance as the tool wear and breakage significantly affect the produced feature quality. Hard coating of the tool is a significant approach to improve its tooling performance by reducing the tool wear and tool breakage. However, the coating can increase the edge radius which increases the cutting forces. Therefore, the prior prediction of cutting forces is very much essential to enhance the tooling performance. We proposed an analytical approach for prediction of cutting forces by combing FEM simulation for orthogonal cutting followed by mechanistic modelling by the consideration of tool run out, minimum chip thickness and elastic recovery for TiAlN-coated tool. Finally, adequacy of the model is verified by experiments, and good agreement between predicted and experimental results is observed.