The Study of Tool Wear Performance on Pocket Milling Strategy

The increasing productivity demand in machining industry has lead for fast material removal machining technique of pocket milling using different tool path strategies. This project aims to study about the effect of different tool path strategies on tool wear when machining aluminium alloy 7076. Five milling strategies were evaluated outward helical, inward helical, back and forth, offset on part one-way and offset on part zigzag. CATIA V5R19 was used to setup milling path and the machining experiments were carried out on a HAAS’ 3 axis CNC milling machine. The machining was held under wet condition with 2500 rpm cutting speed, 800 mm/min feed rate, 2 mm radial depth of cut and 2 mm axial depth of cut. The results showed that the best tool path strategies are inward helical and offset on part one-way, while the worst tool path strategy is outward helical. Failure to evacuate chip during pocket milling is the main reason to cause rapid tool wear due to temperature rise and higher contact time and area of cutting tool with the chip. Results from this experiment help to guide the machinist to perform pocket milling effectively.