The Effect of Harmonic Helix Angle Variation on Milling Stability

Abstract

The linearly varied helix tool is widely used in manufacturing industry and milling tools are available in the market with these special cutting edges. There were several attempts to introduce complex harmonically varied helix tools, but the manufacturing of sinusoid edges is extremely difficult and its effect on cutting dynamics is not clear yet. In this study a mechanical model is introduced to predict the linear stability of these special cutters. It is shown that these milling tools cause distribution in regeneration and the corresponding time periodic distributed delay differential equations are investigated by semi-discretization. This work points out how the harmonically varied helix cutters behave in case of high and low cutting speed applications.