Study on Face Milling Characteristics of GC300 Cast-Iron for Mirror Finishing Processing of Mold Parts

Abstract

Recent changes in the machining trends of mold parts have led to an increased demand for high-precisionmachining and surface roughness control. Typically, post-cutting grinding processes are required for mold partmachining. However, adjusting the cutting conditions enables the exclusion of the grinding process from theoverall operation during surface machining. In this study, experiments were conducted to investigate variouscharacteristics of the face milling of mold parts (GC300). The machining conditions were determined basedon four factors: the number of tooltips, feeding rate, cutting speed, and cutting depth, each comprising threelevels. The experiments were analyzed using the Taguchi method with an orthogonal array L9 toquantitatively evaluate the effects and characteristics of surface roughness. The number of tooltips had themost dominant influence, with a final surface roughness of 0.19 ㎛. The machining conditions derived fromthis study enabled the process to be completed without grinding during the face milling (surface machining)operation, thereby reducing the overall cycle time.