Experiments and 3d Fem Simulations of Milling on a 304l Stainless Steel

Milling is among machining processes one of the most frequently used, but although milling processes operations are very used in mechanical engineering industries and as a lot of experimental results are available, some essential physical phenomena present difficulties of understanding. Indeed milling is a very complex process with physical interactions between shearing, compression, ploughing, friction, very high strain rate, thermal effects and failure. Actually the machining industry needs to use new methodologies to optimise milling operations. In this context, a three dimensional finite element model of milling process, using an explicit commercial code, was developed in the proposed works. The workpiece material behaviour is in a first approach described using a Johnson-Cook constitutive law. In the same time, milling tests have been conducted to furnish cutting forces data in a shoulder milling configuration. In this way, a milling machine has been instrumented with a dynamometer linked to a specific real-time data acquisition system. Finally, a confrontation has been led between the numerical and the experimental results. These experimental and numerical methods are here applied for a 304L stainless steel, and open the way to a model parameters identification procedure directly from milling process.