Adaptive control of tool life in turning

The adaptive control of tool life in order to realize a predetermined tool life for a material of which tool wear characteristic is unknown has been implemented for turning. The increase of tool wear is indirectly detected in an on-line or in-process fashion by means of a specially designed cutting force detector. On-line data analysis and control are executed by a process computer and a numerical controller equipped with a speed control system. The experiment has revealed that the optimizing control of turning operation in view of tool life can be achieved by the on-line identification of tool wear rate while sampling the signals via the variation of cutting force for a short time.