Control of Chatter by Spindle Speed Variation in High-Speed Milling

High-speed milling operations are often limited by regenerative vibrations. The aim of this paper is to analyze the effect of spindle speed variation on machine tool chatter in high-speed milling. The stability analysis of triangular and sinusoidal shape variations is made numerically with the semi-discretization method. Parametric studies show also the influence of the frequency and amplitude variation parameters. This modeling is validated experimentally by variable spindle speed cutting tests with a triangular shape. Stable and unstable tests are analyzed in term of amplitude vibration and surface roughness degradation. This work reveals that stability must be considered at period variation scale. It is also shown that spindle speed variation can be efficiently used to suppress chatter in the flip lobe area.