A Comparative Investigation on Surface Roughness and Residual Stress during End-Milling AISI H13 Steel with Different Geometrical Inserts

Abstract

In the present study, an attempt has been made to experimentally investigate the effects of cutting parameters (cutting speed, feed, radial depth of cut, and axial depth of cut) on surface roughness and residual stress during end-milling AISI H13 steel with the different geometrical inserts, i.e., the parallelogram inserts and the round inserts. Seventeen single-factor experiments were conducted on the Daewoo machining center. The white light interferometer was used to obtain the two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) profile of the milled surface and to calculate Ra value, and the residual stress analyzer was used to measure the surface residual stress along the step-over and feed directions, respectively. It is noticed that the surface milled with the round inserts has far more superior surface finish than that milled with the parallelogram inserts, while the residual stress generated with the round inserts is more compressive than that generated with the parallelogram inserts. “Best” combination of surface roughness and residual stress of the milled surface are not achieved with the same geometrical inserts and cutting parameters. Therefore, a compromise in selecting the geometry of the inserts and the cutting parameters is necessary to achieve the desired surface roughness and residual stress when end-milling AISI H13 steel.

Keywords:

• Cutting parameters
• Parallelogram insert
• Residual stress
• Round insert
• Surface roughness

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research is based upon work supported by Shandong Provincial Natural Sciences Foundation (Y2008F41), Independent Innovation Foundation of Shandong University (2009TS028), and the Project-sponsored by SRF for ROCS, SEM (2010-609).