Strains and cutting forces involved in the solid wood rotating cutting process

Today, for wood industries, a better knowledge of material behaviour during machining is needed for economical and productive reasons: with equipment adapted to manufacturers’ needs. Woodworking machinery and tools manufacturers, as well as their users, urgently require reliable information on the main factors influencing wood cutting and above all on the magnitude of the force required to separate a chip, i.e. the cutting force and its variations in different cases. This is the main aim of this work. This investigation deals with the study of 14 wood species in the following cutting process: routing, i.e. peripheral milling parallel to the longitudinal direction. The influence of main mechanical characteristics was studied and a formulation was obtained which allowed us to estimate more precisely strains involved and the general behaviour of wood during machining.