Peripheral milling of thin titanium plates: modelling, analysis, and process planning

This paper presents research conducted to model and analyse the peripheral milling of thin titanium plates. Impact tests are performed and the vibration characteristics of a thin titanium plate are modelled empirically. The force process is described by a mechanistic model and experimental data are used to determine the model parameters. The particle swarm optimization technique is used to determine the parameters of the plate vibration and force process models, which are combined to create a complete model of the thin titanium plate peripheral milling operation. The models are validated experimentally and excellent agreement is shown between the simulation and experimental results. A process planning scheme for peripheral milling of thin titanium plates is developed and applied. In this scheme, integer numbers of widths-of-cut and depths-of-cut are used and the optimal helix angle and feed are computed for each combination of width-of-cut and depth-of-cut. The process planning test case revealed that the optimal material removal rate decreases as the width-of-cut decreases, the optimal helix angle is independent of the width-of-cut, and the optimal feed increases as the width-of-cut decreases. The test case also revealed that the optimal material removal rate is independent of depth-of-cut, the optimal helix angle increases as the depth-of-cut decreases, and the optimal feed increases as the depth-of-cut decreases.