Abstract
Cutting phenomenon of Ball end milling is complicated and the cutting point on the cutting edge depends on the normal direction of the points to be cut so that it is extremely difficult to estimate tool wear of ball end milling. This paper deals with a system to estimate tool wear distribution of a ball end mill. In the development of the system, wear forms were investigated in cutting experiments, the equations to predict tool wear from the real cutting length and cutting conditions were derived, and a module to calculate the real cutting length with cutting conditions at a cutting point with different radius was constructed. And the usefulness of the system was clarified.
