Chip load prediction in ball-end milling

In the modern manufacturing of sophisticated parts with 3D sculptured surfaces such as dies and molds, ball-end milling is one of the most widely used machining processes to remove unwanted material. However, the machining processes are accompanied by cutting forces that cause tool chattering and dimensional errors. In this paper, a calculation algorithm for the chip load along the cutting edge is proposed, so that it is can be used for predicting cutting forces and the region with excessive dimensional error in the ball-end milling process. For this purpose, an exact chip engagement surface (ECES) from cutting edge geometry is suggested to be a mathematical model with the feed rate effect of cutter, instead of a semi-spherical surface. With the calculated chip load distribution, a simplified method for calculating cutting force at a cutter location is also proposed.