Abstract:The traditional analytical cutting force prediction method for ball-end milling ignores the effect of the inclination angle on cutting forces. In this paper, a new experimental method for cutting force prediction methods considering the inclination angle in the ball-end milling process is proposed. First, the actual immersion ranges of cutter in the ball-end milling process with and without an inclination angle are analyzed by a geometrical method and the cutting force prediction model with an inclination angle is developed by a numerical integration method. Second, considering that entry and exit angles of cutting zones for different cutter layers vary due to the inclination angle, a milling force coefficients identification approach for different cutter layers is established by experimental calibration. Comparing the traditional analytical cutting force prediction method that ignores the inclination angle, the numerical simulation results show that the prediction force values calculated by the proposed method have a better consistency with the measured values.