High-speed end mill boring and rounded corner cutting

Experiments are performed for end milling aluminum at 15,000 RFM spindle speed (1,508 m/min cutting speed) and up to 3 m/min table feedrate using an experimental machine tool control system. A digital feed forward controller for feed drive control incorporates the zero phase error tracking controller (ZPETC) and feed forward friction compensation. Two cutting geometries are considered: rounded corner cutting and boring. In motion control experiments with no cutting, the controller achieves near-perfect tracking and contouring of feed drive trajectories (within /spl plusmn/4 /spl mu/m). In high-speed machining experiments, the error in specimens cut using the controller was significantly smaller than the machining error in specimens produced by an industrial CNC. Surface profile measurements were performed using a coordinate measuring machine.