Uncertainty Management of Cutting Forces Parameters and its Effects on Machining Stability

Virtual manufacturing is a field of research which numerically simulate all the manufacturing processes seen by a mechanical part during its production (for example casting, forging, machining, heat treatment,…). Its use is rising on various industries to reduce production costs and improve quality of manufactured parts. One of the most challenging component of the whole simulation chain is the simulation of machining operations due to some of its specificities (need of material law at high strain, strain rates and temperature, heterogeneities of machined material, influence of residual stresses,…).In order to circumvent these difficulties, macroscopic models of machining process have been developed in order to compute more global information (cutting forces, stability of the process, tolerance or roughness for example). For this approach, the cutting forces computation is done by using simple analytical law based on mechanistic approach. The parameters of the models have no clear physical meaning (or at least cannot be linked to intrinsic properties of the material to be machined) and are therefore considered constants for a given set of simulations.The aim of this paper is to take into account the uncertainty on the variability of the cutting force signal during machining operation used as input for mechanistic model identification. The variability of the response during a test on fixed conditions (cutting tool, machined material and cutting parameters) is taken into account to develop a model where parameters of the model can evolve during a given operation.The proposed model is then used as an input of a milling operation simulation in order to study its influence on machining stability as compared to a classical approach.