End mill having teeth and associated flutes with correlated physical parameters
AssigneeIscar, Ltd.
InventorLeonid Shpigelman
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An end mill includes a plurality of teeth and flutes. The teeth and their associated flutes include one or more correlated physical parameters. One such correlated parameter is that, at an axial location in a front half of an effective cutting length, at least one tooth of the plurality of teeth has a rake angle smaller than an average rake angle value of the plurality of teeth, and, at the same axial location, a flute preceding each such tooth has a helix angle larger than an average helix angle value of the plurality of flutes.
Claims26
A finish end mill configured for rotating about a central rotation axis (AR) defining opposite axially forward and rearward directions (DF, DR), and opposite rotational preceding and succeeding directions (DP, DS), the preceding direction (DP) being the cutting direction, the end mill comprising:
- a shank portion;
- and
- a cutting portion extending forward from the shank portion to a cutting end face;
- the cutting portion comprising:
- a diameter (DE);
- an effective cutting length (LE) greater than 2.5DE;
- a plurality of integrally formed teeth;
- and
- a plurality of flutes alternating with the plurality of teeth, each flute having a helix angle and a flute depth;
- each tooth comprising:
- a rake surface;
- a relief surface succeeding the rake surface and having a relief surface width measurable in a plane perpendicular to the rotation axis (AR);
- a cutting edge formed at an intersection of the rake and relief surfaces;
- a relief edge spaced apart from the cutting edge and formed at an intersection of the relief surface and a flute surface of the flute succeeding the tooth;
- and
- a tooth area defined between a first radial line extending from the cutting edge to the central rotation axis and a second radial line extending from the central rotation axis to a nadir of the succeeding flute;
- wherein:
- at an axial location in a front half of the effective cutting length, at least two of the teeth have different radial rake angle values, at least some of the different radial rake angle values being different from all other non-identical values by 2° or more;
- and
- the flute depth of each flute increases with increasing distance from the shank.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.