Novel ancillary device for minimising machining vibrations in thin wall assemblies

Milling thin wall structures is challenging due to their low stiffness and hence consequential vibration problems. Most of the research in this area was focussed on minimising chatter vibrations-either through generation of stability lobes or by employing targeted damping solutions such as piezoelectric damping; such solutions are suitable only for damping resonant vibrations. However, most of the thin wall structures also get poor surface finish due to forced vibrations either at tooth cutting frequency or tool natural frequencies. In this work, relying on the importance of improving mass and stiffness for greater vibration reduction in milling circular thin-wall components, an innovative articulated device pre-tensioned by torsion springs is proposed. The concept is novel in the sense that it is compact and light-weight and can be used on any shape of thin wall structure. Employing such a device does not alter the nature of dynamic characteristic of the structure thus ensuring better control of achieved dimension of structure. Significant (8 times) vibration reduction was observed using proposed device.