Optimal control for chatter mitigation in milling—Part 2: Experimental validation

•Disturbance rejecting and stabilizing controllers are used for chatter suppression.•Both approaches present different working principles.•Stabilization scheme is validated in experimental conditions.•Minimal critical axial depth of cut is improved of 55% using disturbance rejecting controller.•Chatter-free productivity is increased up to 91% using stabilizing controller.

The productivity of milling operations in chatter-free conditions can be improved using active structural methods. This paper presents the use of a mechatronic system integrated into the spindle unit combined with two different optimal control strategies. The first one aims to minimize the influence of cutting forces on tool tip deviations. The second one explicitly considers the process interaction and attempts to stabilize the overall closed-loop system for specific machining conditions. The first part of this two-part paper describes the modeling and formulation used for both strategies. In this second part, the experimental validation of the proposed concept is presented.