Fuzzy estimation of minor flank wear in face milling

The flank wear at the minor cutting edge significantly affects the geometric accuracy and surface roughness in finish machining. A fuzzy estimator based on a fuzzy inference algorithm with a max-min composition rule is introduced to evaluate the minor flank wear length. The features sensitive to minor flank wear are extracted from the dispersion analysis of a time series AR model of the feed directional acceleration signal. These features, dispersions, are used for constructing linguistic rules, and then the fuzzy inferences are carried out with test data sets collected under various cutting conditions. The proposed system turns out to be effective for estimating minor flank wear length.