Development of an Optical Measuring Eqipment of Flank Wear in Peripheral Cutting Edges of End Mills

Abstract

In this study, a method to measure flank wears of peripheral cutting edges in end mills is proposed and a measuring equipment used in this method is developed. In order to measure the flank wear of spiral milling edges, a servo system consisting of a rotatory and a translatory axes is developed. An end mill is loaded on a collet chuck fixed to the rotatory axis and a CCD camera is set on the translatory axis. A monitoring of a minute part of tool edge geometries is carried out repeatedly after positioning the tool rotatory and translatory axes. Arranging the data obtained in such a way along tool edges, shapes of flank wears of whole cutting edges can be displayed in 2-dimensional diagram. As the results of measurements in the present method, flank wear geometrical shapes of peripheral cutting edges in end mills can be monitored, and it is confirmed that the variation of flank wear shapes in cutting process can be evaluated quantitatively.