Improvement of flatness error in milling plate-shaped workpiece by application of side-clamping force

To improve flatness error of plate-shaped workpieces in milling under side clamp holding mechanisms, appropriate magnitudes of clamping forces and method of application are studied in this paper. The effect of side-clamping force on workpiece deformation is investigated by experimental and computational analyses for the case where the workpiece is clamped at a position higher than the neutral plane of bending of the plate-shaped workpiece. It is found that the thermal deformation and elastic deformation caused by clamping force are in two opposite directions. Then, an appropriate method is proposed to compensate for the workpiece thermal deformation caused by cutting heat with the opposite elastic deformation caused by the side-clamping force, so as to keep the machined top surface of the workpiece flat as much as possible. The proposed method has been confirmed through computational analyses and experiments. © 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.