Why is it hard to identify the onset of chatter? A stochastic resonance perspective

A stochastic dynamical model is presented to identify the difficulties in chatter detection during cutting processes. The theoretical implications are based on measurements related to the stochastic character of the cutting force. The stochastic model is validated in a Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) environment where the multiplicative component of the stochastic cutting force is varied parametrically. In case of an industrial machine tool, the stochastic resonance effect is also demonstrated quantitatively by means of high-resolution vibration measurements for various spindle speeds in full immersion milling. The proposed method predicts the noise induced peaks in the spectrum of the vibration signals, which occur already within the chatter-free parameter domains and might be misjudged as chatter.