The Difference Between Turning Process And Milling Process

1. Generated surfaces and features: Turning is mainly used to generate cylindrical or conical surfaces, regardless of the shape of the raw material. Any features generated during this process must be rotationally symmetric. Usually, it can be used to manufacture axisymmetric parts such as cylindrical or conical shafts, stepped shafts, conical objects, increasing the inner hole diameter (without creating holes), cutting cylindrical grooves, etc. On the contrary, milling can be used to generate surfaces in any direction of the plane as well as contour surfaces. In milling, features such as slots, keyholes, grooves, walls, fins, and web plates are commonly encountered.
2. Machine tools used for operation: In the field of metal cutting, machine tools are a specific type of mechanical equipment that perform different machining operations on different machine tools; However, some machine tools can also perform many similar operations. The turning process is carried out in a multifunctional machine tool called a lathe. This is mainly a horizontal axis machine tool (the spindle is horizontal); However, vertical lathes, especially desktop lathes, can also be used. The milling process is carried out on a CNC milling machine, which can have a vertical axis or a horizontal axis (both of which are common).
3. Single point and multi-point cutting tools: Cutting tools (or tools) may only contain one or more active cutting edges that can participate in material removal actions during the machining process. According to the number of cutting edges, cutting tools can be divided into single point tools or multi-point tools. Use a single point tool for turning operations. So it only has one main cutting edge that can actively participate in shearing or material removal. On the contrary, milling cutters may contain dozens of cutting edges, sometimes even more. Obviously, it is a multi-point tool because more than one cutting edge is involved in cutting or removing material simultaneously.
4. Cutting motion and feed motion: There are two relative movements between the workpiece and the tool, and their simultaneous action will cause the cutting of the material layer of the workpiece. These two are referred to as primary movements because they absorb most of the cutting power; However, there may be other secondary movements based on the features or surfaces to be generated. The function of a machine tool is to apply this relative motion in the expected direction at a predetermined rate.
In the turning process, the workpiece rotating at a fixed cutting speed actually provides the required cutting motion, while the motion of the tool holder (on which the tool is firmly mounted) provides the required feed motion. In milling technology, the opposite is true: cutting motion is provided by the tool rotating at a fixed speed, while feed motion is provided by moving the worktable (on which the workpiece is mounted).