Experimental Investigation on Surface Integrity in a Face Milling Operation

This paper discusses the influence of surface milling on the surface integrity of a 15-5PH martensitic stainless steel. Among the surface integrity features, surface roughness and residual stress profiles are particularly studied. This experimental work aims at characterizing the sensitivity of three technological parameters, namely the number of teeth, the axial runout of the milling cutters and the tilt angle. On these features, it is shown that the surface roughness is determined by the axial runout of the milling cutter when milling with multiple cutters without tilt angle. In contrast, the residual stress state is not significantly affected by any of these parameters.