Investigation on prediction of surface roughness of high speed CNC precision milling process

Abstract

The small and medium sized job order type companies uses highspeed CNC machines for their precision product orders to satisfy the joborder which require the best surface finish requirements The capabilities of the companies in precision components manufacturing market could be sustained in ever growing competitive global scenario The case study for the research was conducted during 2007 and 2008 to ascertain the on site requirements of the small and medium sized enterprises that are involved in the manufacturing of precision components for domestic and global customers The capability of these companies mainly lies on their ability to produce compatible precision products at affordable prices with best practices of machining Most of these CNC manufacturing industries are depending on the skill and experience of machine tool operators for optimal selection of cutting conditions and choice of cutting tools There is no thumb rule to suit material operation and product specific conditions Thus considerable efforts are in progress to eliminate the use of tool maker s handbook based conservative method of selection of cutting conditions and cutting tool selection for a specific job or order The need for scientific selection of machining parameters conditions and the most suitable type of cutting tool has been felt over the years to eliminate the human interventions in selecting the input parameters in order to reduce errors and improve productivity of the system It has long been recognized that cutting conditions of the high speed CNC milling should be selected scientifically to optimize the economics of operation and to improve productivity Despite early works on establishing optimum cutting speeds in low speed Conventional CNC machining a few researchers have reported that the process parameters need to be optimized as high speed CNC milling is an indispensable process to reduce the cost and to improve productivity of the process for small and medium manufacturing industries