Effects of curvature characteristics of sculptured surface on chatter stability for die milling

In this paper, a predictive model of milling stability, which considers the surface curvature and the lead angle of the milling cutter, is proposed for milling of the panel die with sculptured surface. Firstly, influences of the radius of curvature and lead angle of milling cutter on uncut chip thickness are analyzed by exploring the curvature characteristics of sculptured surface. Subsequently, influence of the curvature characteristics of sculptured surface on chatter stability lobes in milling process is investigated by utilizing the full-discretization method. This analysis implies that the milling stability decreases with the increase in the radius of the die surface’s curvature; the milling stability decreases with the increase in lead angle. The experimental results demonstrate that the prediction of chatter stability lobes could match well with the measured results on the change trend, where the maximum relative percent error is less than 11.1 % in stable milling. It is further validated that this method can effectively predict the chatter stability lobes of the domain in ball end milling of sculptured surface of die.