Abstract
Chips are generally assisted to curl and then broken into pieces by chip breakers. This conventional concept sometimes fails especially when the workpiece is highly ductile or the chip is thin and flexible. Contrary to this conventional method, a new concept of continuous chip disposal is proposed in the present research, where the chip is controlled not to curl and guided to a chip disposer. The key to this concept is chip control to suppress the curl and to guide the chip to desired direction. The continuous chip disposal can also be combined easily with chip-pulling cutting. It is known that the cutting process is improved drastically by pulling the chip, i.e. cutting force, energy and heat are all reduced remarkably. Therefore, new chip control methods are developed as basic technologies to realize the continuous disposal and the chip-pulling. A chip control method is proposed to suppress the up-curl by convex tool geometry, i.e. curved rake face with inverse curvature to the up-curl. Tools with the inversely curved rake faces are developed, and it is confirmed that the up-curl can be suppressed at a certain inverse curvature. Another chip control method is proposed to suppress the side-curl and to control the chip flow direction at the same time by forming guide grooves on the rake face. The tools with the guide grooves and a guide tunnel are developed, and it is demonstrated that the chip can be guided successfully along the guide grooves into the guide tunnel over a fairly wide range of conditions.
