Micro ball-end milling of freeform titanium parts

Micro machining has growing number of applications in various industries such as biomedical, automotive, aerospace, micro-sensor, micro-actuator and jewelry industries. Small-sized freeform titanium parts are frequently needed in the biomedical applications, especially in the implantations such as mini-blood pumps and mini left-ventricular assist devices, finger joint replacements and small bone implants. Most of the small-sized titanium parts with freeform geometries are machined using micro ball-end milling before polishing and other surface treatments. Decreasing the cycle time of the machining parts is important for the productivity. In order to reduce the cycle time of the roughing process in the micro ball-end milling, this paper investigates the implementation of a previously developed force-based feedrate scheduling (FFS) technique on micro milling of freeform titanium parts. After briefly introducing the instantaneous micro milling forces in micro ball-end milling of titanium parts with freeform surfaces, the FFS technique is implemented in the rough machining of a freeform titanium surface to demonstrate the cycle time reduction potentials via virtual micro milling simulations.