Distortion in milling of structural parts

Abstract

Cutting forces and thermal loads in milling may cause distortion in machined parts. Especially in the aerospace industry, distortion of thin wall structural parts in milling is one of the major problems. This problem can lead to increasing production costs or even rejection of manufactured parts. This article presents a new finite element modeling (FEM) approach to predict the milling induced distortion of A17050 thin wall structural parts with complex geometries. The new approach is proposed for applying the estimated mechanical and thermal loads on the final part geometry. Milling experiments are performed on a complex frame geometry to validate the model. (C) 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of CIRP.