Effect of axial vibrations on regenerative chatter in robotic milling

Abstract

The highly flexible structure of industrial robots introduces new challenges to modeling vibrations during robotic milling processes. This paper studies the contribution of the axial vibrations of the milling end-effector to regenerative chatter in robotic milling. While axial vibrations of the tool are usually neglected in standard CNC machines, in industrial robots, they may significantly affect the stability of the process. The numerical case studies in this work show that the modulation of the nominal depth of cut due to axial vibrations may cause nonlinearities in the cutting forces. In addition, it is also shown that axial vibrations may cause the feed-generated and edge forces to affect the stability of regenerative vibrations in robotic milling.