On-line wear detection of milling tools using a displacement fiber optic sensor

Abstract

A cost-effective technique for on-line wear monitoring of a milling tool is presented. The tool wear is estimated directly from a fiber optic sensor with high resolution and high bandwidth characteristics. This sensor provides a distance measurement between its probe and the tool profile. The contribution of this work is the application of this sensor to sense on-line wear of a milling tool. Since the light emitted by this sensor comes from a photodiode, it does not produce eye damage, this is safer than laser displacement sensors. This technique senses the tool wear in real time, while the tool is rotating, with an accuracy less than 1 micron. Experimental results are also presented for a four-flank cutting tool rotating at 300 rpm.