The cutting force signal has traditionally served as a reference in conducting the monitoring studies using a variety of sensors to identify the cutting phenomena. There have been continuing studies on how to monitor the cutting force indirectly. It is because it is easier to access when considering an application to the actual machining site. This paper discusses a method of indirectly monitoring the cutting force using the feed drive current to analyze the change in the trend of the cutting force over the lapse of machining time. This enables the analysis of the cutting force by separating it in the X and Y axes of the machining plane. To increase the discrimination of the signal related to the actual cutting phenomenon from the feed drive current signal, a bandpass filter was applied based on the tooth passing frequency. The relationship between the feed drive current and the cutting force analyzed from the machining signal of actual machining conditions was applied to convert the feed drive current into the cutting force. It has been verified through experiments that the cutting load can be estimated with markedly high accuracy as a physical quantity of force from the feed motor current.

Ultrasonic grinding system is that the ultrasonic vibration by ultrasonic actuator is applied on conventional grinding system during grinding process. The Ultrasonic vibration with a frequency of over 20kHz can reduce grinding forces and increase surface quality, material removal rate (MRR) and grinding wheel life. In addition, ultrasonic vibration assisted grinding can be used for the materials that are difficult to cut. In this paper, methodology for ultrasonic tools is studied based on finite element method, and in turn the ultrasonic tools are designed and fabricated. It is found that the ultrasonic tool can vibrate with a frequency of 20kHz and amplitude of 25μm. In order to verify the machining performance, the grinding experiment is performed on titanium alloy. By applying ultrasonic vibration, the grinding force and temperature are reduced and MRR is increased compared with the conventional grinding.