International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture 44 (2004) 15031509 www.elsevier.

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A cutting power model for tool wear monitoring in milling

H. Shao , H.L. Wang, X.M. Zhao
School of Mechanical and Power Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 1954 Huashan Road, Shanghai, PR China Received 26 February 2004; received in revised form 6 May 2004; accepted 12 May 2004

Abstract This paper describes a cutting power model in face milling operation, where cutting conditions and average tool ank wear are taken into account. The cutting power model is veried with experiments. It is shown with the simulations and experiments that the simulated power signals predict the mean cutting power better than the instantaneous cutting power. Finally, the cutting power model is used in a cutting power threshold updating strategy for tool wear monitoring which has been carried out successfully in milling operations under variable cutting conditions. # 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Tool wear; Cutting power signal; Tool condition monitoring; Milling

1. Introduction In metal cutting operations, tool condition must be monitored either by operators or by on-line tool condition monitoring systems (TCMS) to avoid possible damage to both products and machine tools. With the ever-increasing demand for cost saving and quality improvements, on-line tool condition monitoring is becoming more and more important in modern manufacturing. In the last three decades [14], many eorts have been made to develop a reliable and cost-eective TCMS for applications on the shop oor. The suggested techniques for tool condition monitoring can be grouped into two main categories [13]: direct methods and indirect methods. The direct methods can be implemented using devices such as touch trigger probes, optical sensors, and proximity sensors to measure the geometry and/or the morphology of cutting edge. The indirect methods are based on the acquisition of process variables from which tool condition can be deduced according to certain known signal patterns. The former methods are reliable, but they cannot provide continuous in-process measurements because cutting edges are generally inaccessible during cutting; on the contrary, the latter methods can take measure

Corresponding author. Fax: +8621-629-32611. E-mail address: shaohuac@online.sh.cn (H. Shao).

ments while cutting tools are actively engaged in cutting, which makes it possible to monitor the cutting tool condition monitoring on-line. In these indirect TCMSs, process variables such as cutting forces, acoustic emission, temperature, vibration, spindle motor power (current), etc. are measured continuously and tool states are estimated according to certain signal patterns which are correlated to tool wear or breakage [4]. Among many on-line TCMSs, the spindle motor power monitoring system is considered to be one of the most applicable systems for shop oor applications because it is relatively simple and its mounting hardly aects the machining operations. Like many other monitoring systems, most power monitoring systems are usually based on the constant threshold monitoring strategy where the measured power signals are continuously compared with a preset monitoring threshold that is assumed to be correlated to tool breakage or certain level of tool wear [3,5,6]. Although the constant threshold monitoring strategy is easy to apply, it is only valid for a particular set of machining conditions. Indirectly measured power signals are generally aected by work-piece material variation, geometry and material of the cutting tool and cutting condition. In particular, the constants or thresholds suggested to relate power signals to tool condition are specic to a certain set of cutting conditions. This necessitates the development and storage of a set of

0890-6955/$ - see front matter # 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijmachtools.2004.05.003

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Nomenclature ae ap c D f fz Fnw Ftw Ft(u)  h H K l m n  p i p [P]  P pi(u) Pj(u) Pm(u) s v [VB] VB z d g l u uin uout U w1 w2 w width of cut (mm) depth of cut (mm) chip thickness constant diameter of a milling cutter (mm) feed rate (mm/rev) feed rate per tooth (mm) force normal to the wear land of a worn tool (N) tangential force along the wear land of a worn tool (N) tangential cutting force (N) mean chip thickness(mm) Brinell hardness (N/mm2) cutting force constant (MN/m) ank wear land length (mm) number of teeth simultaneously involved in cutting spindle speed (rev/min) moving average of measured power signals of a spindle motor (kW) mean idle-running power of a spindle motor (kW) power threshold (kW) mean power consumption of a cutter (kW) instantaneous power consumption of ith cutting tooth (kW) instantaneous power consumption of a cutter in jth cutting cycle (kW) instantaneous power consumption of m cutting teeth (kW) eective wear land length(mm) cutting speed (m/min) tool wear criterion (mm) average ank wear land width (mm) number of cutting teeth on a cutter oset distance between work-piece and cutter centers (mm) eciency coecient of a spindle system coecient of sliding friction between work-piece and tool materials instantaneous angle of rotation (rad) angle where a cutting tooth enters a cutting zone (rad) angle where a cutting tooth exits a cutting zone (rad) tooth pitch angle (rad) part of immersion angle (rad) other part of immersion angle (rad) immersion angle (rad) (w1 w2 )

thresholds as well as many other parameters for each process condition of interest. In addition, extensive wear tests must be carried out for the conditions or sets of conditions desired in order to obtain the various constants or parameters needed to predict tool breakage or tool wear level. These costly drawbacks make industry very reluctant to accept the technology for practical applications on their shop oors. Clearly, it is very demanding for new monitoring approaches capable of circumventing these drawbacks, especially the ones that can deal with variable cutting conditions. The main objective of this study is to develop a cutting power model in which cutting conditions (such as

cutting speed, feed rate, depth of cut, work-piece material and tool material) as well as tool ank wear will be taken into account. Based on the power model, a threshold updating monitoring strategy, which can deal with variable cutting conditions, is presented.

2. Cutting power modeling in face milling Power monitoring of a cutting tool is based on the fact that less power is consumed when using a sharp tool than a worn tool. Because the power consumption of a spindle drive motor is determined by the cutting torque, the tangential component of cutting force will

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be of interest in the current study. In this section, the cutting power model will be developed based on a modied mechanical cutting force model. 2.1. Tangential cutting force in face milling Many attempts have been reported on the modeling of cutting force [79]. According to Altintas and Yellowley [8], the tangential component can be given as (Fig. 1) Ft u K c ap fz sinu h 1 where K and c are constants,  is the mean chip thickh ness: uout fz  1 hudu sinw1 sinw2 h w uin w where w1 arcsinae 2d=D w2 arcsinae 2d=D w w1 w2 uin p=2 w1 uout p=2 w2 2.2. Accounting tool wear in the tangential force Tool wear is inevitable during the cutting process, so the tool wear should be included in the cutting force model. Daniel et al. [9] suggest that the force due to ank wear on a cutting edge can be modeled with two components (Fnw and Ftw). Fnw is normal to the wear land and is proportional to the material hardness H (Brinell hardness number), the average wear land width (VB), the eective wear land length s. According to

Daniel et al. [9], Fnw HVBs where s minap ;l, l is the actual wear land length. And Ftw is due to the friction on the wear land Ftw lFnw 3 where l is the coecient of sliding friction between the work-piece and tool material. For simplicity, we assume that l is larger than ap, based on Eqs. (1)(3), the tangential component of cutting force can be modeled as: Ft u ap K c fz sinu lHVB h 4 2

2.3. Modeling of instantaneous cutting power in face milling Based on Eq. (4), for a milling cutter with Z teeth, the cutting power of the ith cutting tooth can be dened as:
pi u pDnFt u pDnap K c fz sinu lHVB uin h u uout 5

The number of teeth simultaneously involved in cutting (m) is determined by both the tooth pitch angle of a cutter (U) and the immersion angle (w) (Fig. 2a). It increases as the immersion becomes larger and vice versa. For a milling cutter with Z teeth, the maximum m is Z=2 while a cutter is in full immersion. For a given immersion, the milling process can be divided into m teeth cutting phase (phase A) and (m1) teeth cutting phase (phase B) (Fig. 2a), The m teeth cutting phase and (m1) teeth cutting phase alternate with each other at the tooth passing frequency (Fig. 2b). Based on Eq. (5), the cutting power of a milling cutter in the jth cutting cycle can be developed as (Fig. 2):
m P pDn Ft u i 1U 6 i1 6 i1 6 6 6 Pj u 6 m1 m1 P 4P 4 pDn Ft u i 1U pi u m P

pi u

i1

i1

Pm u

6 6 6 4 Pm1 u

uin j 1U j mU

u < w uin u < uin 6

w uin j mU jU

j 1;2;3; . . . where
Fig. 1. Cutting parameters in face milling.

  sinu m 1U=2sinmU=2 Pm u pDnap K c fz h lHmVB sinU=2

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H. Shao et al. / International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture 44 (2004) 15031509 Table 1 Experimental conditions Work-piece Material: cast iron (HB 1680 N=mm2 ) Size: 500 70 500 mm3 Material: carbide Number of teeth: 1 and 5 Diameter: 100 mm Depth of cut: 26 mm Feed: 0.0652 mm/rev Cutting speed: 18236 m/min Width of cut: 70 mm Oset distance: 0 Type of cut: up milling and down milling No cutting uid

Cutter

Cutting condition

power signals and the least mean square procedure, the power model constants obtained are K 1:54 MN=m, c 0:23, and u 0:1. It is noted that from here on the same cutter, work-piece material and model constants are used for simulation and experimental results presented in this paper. 3.2. Results and discussion In order to test the validity of the suggested cutting power model, ve groups of simulations and experiments were carried out (Table 2). The rst two groups were designed to investigate the signal patterns of the cutting power in time domain. The other three were carried out to verify the modeled proportional relationship between VB and the mean cutting power. In the rst group, the cutting power signals of a single-toothed cutting operation were investigated. The simulated and measured power signals of singletoothed cutting with a new tool (VB 0) and a worn tool (VB 1:1 mm, l 4:0 mm) are shown in Fig. 3. In the second group, multi-toothed cutting power signals with a new tool (VB 0) and a worn tool (VB 0:98 mm, l 4:0 mm) are shown in Fig. 4. In both cases, the simulated signals and measured signals are in good agreement except in the areas where teeth start and end cutting. In these areas, the measured signals have some uctuations. This is because there is a sudden increase (positive impulse) of the cutting load onto
Table 2 Cutting condition details for simulations and experiments Groups Number Cutting of teeth speed (m/min) 1 5 5 5 5 18 9 94 149 149 Depth of cut (mm) 4 4 5 2 3 Feed rate (mm/rev) 0.8 0.8 0.78 1 1 Oset distance (mm) 0 0 0 0 0

Fig. 2. Multi-toothed cutting process: (a) cutting geometry; (b) cutting power distribution. uD w m1u, pi(u): cutting power of ith cutting tooth (i 1; 2; . . . ;m1;m;m1; . . . ;Z), Pj(u): cutting power of a milling cutter in jth cutting cycle (j 1; 2; 3; . . .).

2.4. Mean cutting power model in face milling From Eqs. (4) and (6), the mean cutting power can be given as  P ZnDap K c fz cosuin cosuin w h lHVBw=2 3. Simulations and experiments 3.1. Experimental procedures The cutting experiments were carried out on a horizontal columnknee type milling machine (X62W). The data acquisition system was composed of a motor power transducer, an A/D conversion card and a personal computer. Flank wear of the carbide insert was measured using a microscope. Milling experiments were carried out under dierent cutting conditions (Table 1). Based on the measured 7

1 2 3 4 5

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tuation in the measured power signals. Similarly, while the tooth exits from the cutting zone, a negative impulse due to the sudden loss of the cutting load can also make the uctuations in the signals. The simulation and experimental results of the last three groups are shown in Fig. 5. It can be seen that the simulated mean cutting power are in excellent agreement with the measured ones. In other words, the mean cutting power model can be used to predict the actual average cutting power consumption of a cutting tool. It can also be observed from Fig. 5 that both the simulated and measured power signals are generally proportional to VB. This suggests that the mean cutting power can be a good index for tool wear monitoring. 4. A threshold updating strategy for tool condition monitoring In this section, based on the mean cutting power model, a tool wear monitoring strategy, which can deal with variable cutting operations, by continuously updating monitoring threshold of mean cutting power signal will be presented. It includes the following steps: (1) Input data of the machine tool, the cutting tool and the work to be machined; (2) Select a tool wear criterion [VB] according to the requirements of product quality such as surface roughness and dimensional accuracy; (3) Make on-line identication of cutting conditions; (4) Based on Eq. (7), calculate the mean net cutting power corresponding to [VB]   P ZnDap K hc fz cosu cosu w
in in

Fig. 3. Two cycles of cutting power signals in single-toothed milling: (a) measured signals; (b) simulated signals.

the spindle driving system when a cutting tooth enters the cutting zone. This abrupt load gain causes an overshoot in the power measuring system and makes a uc-

lHVBW=2

(5) Calculate the cutting power threshold [P] for tool condition monitoring based on Eq. (8)  P i P=g p 9 where [P] is the threshold for measured motor power signals, i is the mean idle-running power of p a spindle motor at certain spindle speed n, and g is a coecient related to the eciency of the spindle system; (6) Sample power signal from the spindle motor and carry out software low pass ltering of the power signal, calculate the moving average of the low passed power signal ; p (7) Compare  and [P]. If  < P, repeat from step (3); p p otherwise, suspend the machining, replace the worn tool, restart machining and repeat from step (1) or step (3).
Fig. 4. Multi-toothed cutting power signals: (a) measured signals; (b) simulated signals.

A ow chart of the suggested tool condition monitoring strategy is shown in Fig. 6. The monitoring

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Fig. 5. Tool wear vs. mean cutting power in multi-toothed milling: (a) cutting speed, v 94 m=min, depth of cut, ap 5 mm, feed rate, f 0:78 mm=rev; (b) v 149 m=min, ap 2 mm, f 1 mm=rev; (c) v 149 m=min, ap 3 mm, f 1 mm=rev.

strategy has been tried successfully in laboratory under variable cutting conditions. Fig. 7 shows a monitoring experiment dealing with dierent depth of cut (from 2 to 3 mm), which demonstrates that the suggested monitoring strategy is more robust and practical than the traditional constant threshold monitoring strategy. For a given allowed tool ank wear (VB 0:5 mm), the corresponding power thresholds at depth of cut of 2 and 3 mm are 3.15 and 4.35 kW, respectively (Fig. 7). In the constant threshold strategy, if the power threshold is set at 3.15 kW during the milling process, correct monitoring of tool wear can be realized when depth of

cut is 2 mm, but false alarms of worn tool will happen when depth of cut becomes 3 mm (where the power signals of a sharp tool (VB 0:00 mm) are around 3.3 kW (Fig. 7)). On the other hand, if the threshold is set at 4.35 kW that is suitable for 3 mm depth of cut, the monitoring system will even fail to alarm a worn tool with a ank wear width as large as 0.85 mm when depth of cut is 2 mm (where the power signals of a worn cutter (VB 0:85 mm) are only around 3.45 kW (Fig. 7)). The suggested threshold updating strategy can successfully carry out this monitoring task simply

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Fig. 7. Moving average power signals of a new cutting tool VB 0:00 mm) and a worn cutting tool (VB 0:85 mm) and a monitoring threshold curve for allowed tool ank wear VB 0:5 mm. Cutting conditions: depth of cut, ap 2 mm (beginning phase), ap 3 mm (nal phase); width of cut, ae 70 mm; cutting speed, v 149 m=min; feed rate, f 1 mm=rev. The mean idle running power at v 149 m=min: i 0:68 kW. The coecient of p eciency: g 0:91.

successfully implemented with varying cutting conditions. The suggested strategy is more robust and practical to be implemented on the shop oor than the traditional constant threshold power monitoring methods [35] especially when dealing with variable cutting conditions.

References
Fig. 6. Flow chart for tool condition monitoring. [1] N.H. Cook, Tool wear sensors, Wear 62 (1980) 4957. [2] D. Li, J. Matthew, Tool wear and failure monitoring techniques for turninga review, International Journal of Machine tools and Manufacture 30 (4) (1990) 579598. [3] P.W. Prickett, C. Johns, An overview of approaches to end milling tool monitoring, International Journal of Machine tools and Manufacture 39 (1999) 105122. [4] D.E. Dimla Sr., Sensor signals for tool-wear monitoring in metal cutting operationsa review of methods, International Journal of Machine tools and Manufacture 40 (2000) 10731098. [5] D. Cuppini, G. Derrico, G. Rutelli, Tool wear monitoring based on cutting power measurement, Wear 139 (1990) 303311. [6] J. Jones, Y. Wu, Cutting tools power consumption measurements, US Patent, US 5587931, 1996. [7] S.E. Oraby, D.R. Hayhurst, Development of models for tool wear force relationships in metal cutting, International Journal of Machine tools and Manufacture 33 (2) (1991) 125138. [8] Y. Altintas, I. Yellowley, In-process detection of tool failure in milling using cutting force models, Transaction of ASME, Journal of Engineering for Industry 111 (1989) 149157. [9] D.J. Waldert, S.G. Kapoor, R.E. Devor, Automatic recognition of tool wear on a face mill using a mechanistic modeling approach, Wear 157 (1992) 305323.

by changing the power threshold from 3.15 to 4.35 kW when depth of cut shifts from 2 to 3 mm. 5. Conclusions A cutting power model for tool wear monitoring in variable cutting conditions has been developed. The intermittent cutting load on a spindle motor in milling operation has been simulated. It was found with the experiments that there are inherent uctuations in measured cutting power signals due to the intermittent cutting load in milling operation. These uctuations make it very dicult to use the power model to predict instantaneous power signal. However, the mean cutting power of measured and simulated power signals demonstrated good agreements. A tool wear threshold updating monitoring strategy has been introduced and