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Introduction: Milling is metal cutting operation in which the excess material from the
workpiece is removed by rotating multipoint cutting tool called milling cutter. A milling
machine is a machine tool that removes metal as the work is fed against a rotating multipoint
cutter. The machine can also hold one or more number of cutters at a time.
As the workpiece moves against the cutting edges of milling cutter, material is removed in
form of chips. Machined surface is formed in one or more passes of workpiece. For better
surface finish, accuracy and high production rate it is used more than the other machines.
Uses of Milling:
• Slitting or parting
• Cutting teeth in piece or batch production of spur gears, straight toothed bevel gears, worm
wheels, clutches etc.
• Producing some salient features like grooves, flutes, profiles in various cutting tools, e.g.,
drills, taps, reamers, gear shaping cutters etc.
Milling processes:
Peripheral Milling:
Depending upon the movement of tool and workpiece the milling processes are classified as
1. Up or Conventional Milling.
Up Milling
Figure 3: Up Milling
• In conventional or up milling, the cutter rotates against the direction of the feed.
• Chip width starts from zero and increases which causes more heat to diffuse into the
workpiece and produces work hardening.
• Tool rubs more at the beginning of the cut causing faster tool wear and decreases tool
life
• Chips are carried upward by the tooth and fall in front of cutter creating a marred
finish and re-cutting of chips
• Upwards forces created in horizontal milling tend to lift the workpiece, more intricate
and expensive work holdings are needed to lessen the lift created.
Down Milling
• The peripheral cutting edges of the cutter do the actual cutting, whereas the face
cutting edges finish up the work surface by removing very small amount of material.
• When the cutter rotates half of the revolution, the direction of movement of the cutter
tooth is opposite to the direction of feed and the condition reverses when the cutter
rotates through other half of the revolution.
• The thickness of the chip is minimum at the beginning and at the end of the cut and it
is maximum when the work passes through the center line of the cutter.
Slab Milling
Slotting
Figure 7: Slotting
Width of cutter is less than workpiece width, creating a slot in the work.
End milling
• The end milling may be considered as the combination of peripheral and face milling
operation.
• The cutter has teeth both on the end face and on the periphery.
Types of Milling machine
Base – It is made of cast iron and supports all the other parts of the machine tool. A vertical
column is mounted upon the base. In some machines, the base serves as a reservoir for
cutting fluid.
Column – It is mounted upon the base and is box shaped. It houses the mechanism for
providing drive for the spindle. The front vertical face of the column is machined accurately
to form dovetail guideways for the knee to move up and down. The top of the column holds
an overhanging arm.
Knee – It slides up and down on the guideways of the column. An elevating screw
mounted on the base obtains this movement. Saddle is mounted upon the knee and moves in a
cross direction.
Saddle – It is mounted on the guideways of the knee and moves towards or away from the
face of the column. This movement can be obtained either by power or by hand. The top of
the saddle has guideways for the table movement.
Table – The table is moved longitudinally either by power or manually on the guideways
of the saddle. The top surface of the table has got ‘T’ – slots on which the workpieces or
other work holding devices are mounted.
Spindle – It is located in the upper part of the column. It receives power from the motor
through belt, gears and clutches. The front end of the spindle has got a taper hole into which
the cutters are held with different cutter holding devices.
Overhanging arm – It supports the arbor from the top of the column. The arbor is supported
by the bearing fitted within the arbor support. It is also useful while using some special
attachments.
Arbor
• One or more cutters are mounted on the arbor by placing spacing collars between
them.
• The spindle head which is clamped to the vertical column may be swiveled at an
angle, permitting the milling cutter mounted on the spindle to work on angular
surfaces.
• The machine adopted for machining grooves, slots, and flat surfaces.
• The end mills and face milling cutters are the usual tools mounted on the spindle.
• The spindle head which is clamped to the vertical column may be swiveled at an
angle, permitting the milling cutter mounted on the spindle to work on angular
surfaces.
• The machine adopted for machining grooves, slots, and flat surfaces.
• The end mills and face milling cutters are the usual tools mounted on the spindle.
c) Universal Milling machine
• The table can be swiveled about an vertical axis and set an angle other than right
angles to the spindle.
• It is used in making helical grooves in twist drills, milling cutters and reamers.
• In this machine , the besides having all the movements of universal milling machine ,
can be tilted in a vertical plane by providing a swiveling arrangement at the knee.
• Also the knee assembly is mounted in such a way that it may be fed in a longitudinal
direction horizontally.
• The machine is particularly suitable for light and simple milling operations such as
machining slots, grooves and keyways.
• The fixed bed type milling machines are comparatively large, heavy and rigid and
differ from column and knee type machine by the construction of table mounting.
• The table movement is restricted to reciprocation at right angles to the spindle axis
with no provision for cross or vertical adjustment.
• The cutter mounted on the spindle head may be moved vertically on the column and
spindle may be adjust horizontally to provide cross adjustment.
Milling Machine Mechanism
A. Knee, B. saddle, C. Table, D. Clamp bed, E. Feed hand wheel, F. Bed, G. Column, H.
Feed gear box
• Milling machine mechanism is composed of spindle drive mechanism and the table
feed mechanism.
• Power feed mechanism contained within the knee A of the machine to enable the table
C to have three different feed movements.
• Power is transmitted from the feed gear box H consisting of change gears to shaft 23
in the knee of the machine by a telescopic shaft 11.
• Both the ends of the shaft 11 are provided with universal joint10 and 12.
• Telescopic shaft and universal joints are necessary to allow vertical movement of the
knee A, gear 14, attached to the jaw clutch 20, is keyed to the shaft 23 and drives gear
13 which is free to rotate on the extreme end of the cross feed screw 7.
• Bevel gear 22 is free to rotate on the shaft 23 and is in mesh with gear 19 fastened to
the elevating screw 15. 16 serves as a nut for 15, and as a screw in nut 17.
• As sson as the clutch 20 is engaged with the clutch attached to the bevel gear 22 by
means of a lever 4, 22 rotates and this being in mesh with gear 19 causes the elevating
screw 15 to rattae in 16 giving the vertical movemnt of the knee.
• When the clutch 21, which is keyed to the cross feed screw 7, is engaged with the
clutch attached to gear 13, power comes to the screw 7 through gears 14 and 13. This
causes the screw 7 to raotate in nut 6 of the clamp bed giving a crossfeed movement
of the clamp bed D and saddle B.
• Gear 18 is fastened to shaft 23, and meshes with gear 25 which is fastened to the
bevel gear 24.
• Again 24meshes with gear 5 attached to a vertical shaft which carries at its upper end
another bevel gear 3.
• Gear 3 meshes with gear 2 which is fastened to the table feed screw 1. Therefore,
longitudinal feed movement of the table is possible through gears 18, 25, 24, 5, 3 and
2.
Outside diameter: diameter passing through centre of cutter and joining two ends of the
periphery.
Root diameter: passing through centre of cutter and joining two bottom fillet.
Lip angle: It is the angle between the face of the teeth and the land of the teeth. Land is a
narrow surface on the back of teeth.
Relief angle: it is the angle between the tangent to the outside diameter of the cutter at
cutting edge and the land of the tooth. The function relief angle is to avoid the interference
between the land of the tooth and the work surface. The relief angle varies with the type of
material to be machined.
Radial rake angle: it is the angle between the face of teeth and the radial line passing
through the cutting edge of the tooth. The radial rake angle may be positive, negative or zero.
It is provided free cutting by allowing chips to flow smoothly on the face of the cutter.
Axial rake angle: angle between the line of peripheral cutting edge and axis of the cutter. It
is an angle in a plane perpendicular to the radial plane.
Clearance angle: it is thee angle between the back of the tooth and the tangen
tangent to the outside
diameter at the cutting edge
ge of the
t tooth. It is divided into two according
ng to tthe clearance
surface. (primary clearance
ce ang
angle and secondary clearance angle)
Sm = n × Srev = Szz × Z × n
n = the cutter
tter speed
spe in r.p.m
Depth of cut: The depth of cut in milling machine is the thickness of the material
ma removed in
one pass of the work under
er the cutter.
Z = Sm/(Sz × n)
T=
D = the diameter
diame of the cutter in mm
Figure 14: Approach length for plain milling cutter
Indexing is the process of evenly dividing the circumference of a circular work piece into
equally spaced divisions, such in cutting gear teeth.
Direct Indexing
• The plate is moved by hand to index directly, the spindle and the work piece rotate an
equal distance.
• Direct index plates usually have 24 holes and offer a quick means of milling
Simple Indexing
• Worm attached to crank must be engaged with worm wheel on dividing head spindle.
• One complete turn on index crank causes the spindle and work to rotate one-fortieth
of a turn
• Calculating the indexing or number of turns of crank for most, simply divide 40 by
number of divisions or flats to be cut.
Compound Indexing
In compound indexing, the required amount of rotation may be reached by the algebraic sum
of two successive rotations along two separate hole circles.
Differential Indexing
2. The simultaneous movement of the index plate, when the crank is turned.
• The rotation or differential motion of the index plate may take place in the same
direction as the crank or opposite to it as may be required.
• The result is that the actual movement of the crank at every indexing is automatically
increased or decreased giving the required index movement of the spindle.
Where,
A = the selected number which can be indexed by plain indexing and the number is
approximately equal to N.
3. In the gearing ratio so calculated, the numerators of the fraction indicate the driving gears
on the index head spindle and the denominators indicate the driven gears on the index plate.
5. If (A-N) is possitive the index plate must rotate in the same direction as the crank and if(A-
N) is negative the index plate must rotate in a direction opposite to that of the crank.
Angular Indexing
The angular indexing is the process of dividing the periphery of a work in angular
measurements and not by the number of divisions.
There are 360 degrees in a circle, and when the index crank is rotated by 40 number of
revolutuions, spindle rotates through one complete rotations or by 360 degrees.
One complete turn of the crank will cause the spindle and the work table rotate through
360/40=9 degrees.
The cutting of spur gear is done after determining gear tooth proportions, selecting the type of
indexing to be performed, and finding the correct number of form cutter.
The speed should be slightly lower than the plain milling operation and the feed should be
normal.
The cutter is mounted on the arbor and it is then centered accurately with the diving head
spindle by adjusting the position of the table.
The gear blank is mounted between the two centers by a mandrel and is connected with the
diving head spindle.
The proper index plate is bolted on the dividing head the positions of the crank pin and the
sector arms are adjusted.
For a smaller size gear blank, the depth of cut is given equal to the full depth of the gear
tooth.
The table is raised to give the required depth of cut by turning the dial through the calculated
no of divisions.
The machine is started and the feed is applied to finish the first tooth space of the gear.
After that blank is positioned by indexing for the next cut and the operation is repeated.
c) Cutter pitch = 3m
The helical gear milling operation is taken in hand after preparing the gear blank to the
required size and calculating the necessary tooth dimensions.
The spindle of the dividing head and tailstock are aligned so that they may be perpendicular
to the machine spindle.
The proper cutter is chosen and mounted on the arbor.
c) Cutter pitch = 6m
ᵦ = Helix angle
Selection of Cutter
A cutter that was made for a tooth size would make any gear with that size tooth. But,
unfortunately, for any given size of tooth, pressure angle etc. the shape of the tooth will vary
depending upon the number of teeth on the gear being made. This means that to be able to cut
a gear with any number of teeth but for a given size of tooth a set of eight cutters is required.
In order to cope with this it is necessary to have a cutter for each of a range of teeth numbers.