The Effect of Non-Symmetric FRF on Machining: A Case Study

Stability prediction of machining operations is often not reliable due to the inaccurate mechanical modeling. A major source of this inaccuracy is the uncertainties in the dynamic parameters of the machining center at different spindle speeds. The so-called tip-to-tip measurement is the fastest and most convenient method to determine the frequency response of the machine. This concept consists of the measurement of the tool tip’s frequency response function (FRF) usually in two perpendicular directions including cross terms. Although the cross FRFs are often neglected in practical applications, they may affect the system’s dynamics. In this paper, the stability diagrams are analyzed for milling operations in case of diagonal, symmetric and non-symmetric FRF matrices. First a time-domain model is derived by fitting a multiple-degrees-of-freedom model to the FRF matrix, then the semi-discretization method is used to determine stability diagrams. The results show that the omission of the non-symmetry of the FRF matrix may lead to inaccurate stability diagram.