Cutting force investigation in face milling of additively fabricated nickel alloy 625 via powder bed fusion

The face milling of additively fabricated nickel alloy 625 produced via laser powder bed fusion is experimentally investigated. Typically, cutting forces are the most important factor affects the process outcome in terms of surface finish and chatter vibrations in milling of difficult-to-cut materials. The additively fabricated materials possess different mechanical properties hence their cutting force performance is usually unknown. For additively fabricated nickel alloy 625, the build direction and scan strategy rotation are known to influence the resultant workpiece structure with columnar grains. The peak milling force is found dependent upon the feed direction as well as the layerwise scan rotation employed in fabricating the workpiece. Feeding the cutter against the build direction resulted in lower peak forces with larger deviations, however feeding along the build direction resulted in higher peak forces with lower deviations. The build direction was also observable on fan shaped chip surfaces.