Numerical Integration Method for Stability Analysis of Milling With Variable Spindle Speeds

A semi-analytical method is presented in this paper for stability analysis of milling with a variable spindle speed (VSS), periodically modulated around a nominal spindle speed. Taking the regenerative effect into account, the dynamics of the VSS milling is governed by a delay-differential equation (DDE) with time-periodic coefficients and a time-varying delay. By reformulating the original DDE in an integral-equation form, one time period is divided into a series of subintervals. With the aid of numerical integrations, the transition matrix over one time period is then obtained to determine the milling stability by using Floquet theory. On this basis, the stability lobes consisting of critical machining parameters can be calculated. Unlike the constant spindle speed (CSS) milling, the time delay for the VSS is determined by an integral transcendental equation which is accurately calculated with an ordinary differential equation (ODE) based method instead of the formerly adopted approximation expressions. The proposed numerical integration method is verified with high computational efficiency and accuracy by comparing with other methods via a two-degree-of-freedom milling example. With the proposed method, this paper details the influence of modulation parameters on stability diagrams for the VSS milling.