Laboratory for Manufacturing and Sustainability

This paper presents an investigation on micro-burr formation in machining. Micro cutting is compared with conventional cutting in terms of cutting process characteristics and cutting conditions. An acceptable range of cutting conditions for micro cutting has been determined by extrapolating the conditions for conventional cutting and experimental verification. With cutting conditions determined, a series of experiments was conducted to investigate burr formation and tool life. Herein, tool life is defined as the number of holes created before a catastrophic increase in burr height occurs. Based on experimental results, contour charts for predicting burr formation as well as tool life are developed to minimize burr formation and to improve tool life.