Analytical force modelling for micro milling additively fabricated Inconel 625

In recent years, miniaturization of components has been concerned with several industrial fields including aerospace, energy, and electronics. This phenomenon resulted in increasing demand of micro-components with complex shape and high strength, often in high-temperature environment. Nickel-based superalloys such as Inconel 625 are a class of material suitable to aforementioned applications and can be successfully processed with Additive Manufacturing (AM). Moreover, micro-milling can be employed to manufacture micro-scale features on the additively fabricated parts or to achieve better surface finishes, as required for high-precision mechanical assemblies. In micro machining, it is possible to notice a lack of scientific study focusses on the material removal behavior of difficulty-to-cut alloys produced via Additive Manufacturing. This paper describes an analytical cutting force model suitable also for AM’d parts which considers the presence of ploughing- and shearing- dominated cutting regimes. A refinement procedure of the cutting force model was defined and applied by performing an experimental work on Inconel 625 samples fabricated by LaserCUSING™. A search algorithm was employed to develop an iterative methodology to determine the unknown cutting force model parameters. The model was successfully utilized to predict how the cutting force is affected as the process parameters change.