Geometrical features of micro milling cutters for machining of medical components made of titanium alloys

Micromachining is an increasingly important material cutting process which is performed on workpieces in micro-scale. It is widely used in rapidly developing advanced areas like electronic, aerospace and medical industries. In medical industry, micromachining is applied for producing instruments, joint implants and dentures. The medical components should be made only of biologically compatible and hard-to- machine materials such as cobalt and nickel based alloys, ceramics and titanium alloys. For manufacturing medical components, small-sized end mills with working diameter of less than 1 mm are often used. Such micro milling cutters impose difficulties on the mechanical micromachining process. To determine the functional relationships between structural strength, cutting properties and geometry of a micro milling cutter, a mathematical model is derived in this paper. Before experimental phase, the calculation of cutting forces was performed as this will reduce the time to determine the optimal cutting data and maximize the tool life.