An Investigation of the Cutting Process for Chip Breaking Monitoring in Turning of Steels

Abstract

This paper presents some results of an experimental study on chip breaking monitoring when turning steels with chip forming inserts. In the first part of this study the recognition of chip forms by means of cutting force analysis in the frequency domain is described. Generally, the present work is concerned with the use of the interface control factor for determining the transition from unacceptable chip forms to the chip breaking. For this purpose experiments under approximately orthogonal machining conditions including measuring the shear strain, the cutting energy and the average interface temperature are carried out. The obtained results confirmed that the initiation of acceptable chip breaking for a wide range of cutting conditions and the three steels used could be predicted in terms of an appropriate energy consumption rate. An architecture for on-line cutting state monitoring system based on signal processing procedure in the frequency domain is developed and the performance of the system is experimentally evaluated.