Deformations of thin-walled plate due to static end milling force

Many components used in the aerospace industry are usually thin-walled structures. Because of their poor stiffness, thin-walled parts are very easy to deform in the process of cutting. Due to the gradual reduced thickness during cutting, the end milling of thin-walled plate is a very complicated process. This paper proposes a new analytical deformation model suitable for static deformations prediction of thin-walled plate with low rigidity. The part deformations are predicted using a theoretical deformation equations model, which is established on the basis of reciprocal theorem when the linear load acts on thin-walled plates. The part deformations in end milling process are simulated by using FEM software ANSYS10.0. In the process of simulating, the influences of linear loads, location of the cutter (including x and y direction), thickness of the plates on the deformations of the thin-walled plates are analyzed. The results may help to increase the geometric accuracy of milling flexible thin-walled plates by considering the impact of the milling forces, location of cutter and the part thickness on the deformations of thin-walled structures. Furthermore, the results show that the diverse cutting parameters should be selected at each machining layer to satisfy the machining efficiency and precision in the process of milling thin-walled plate.